Of Lake Erie and an idyllic summer afternoon

Once upon a time, when I was starting out with railway books, I thought I was writing about steam locomotives and train operations. At other times, I have considered the volumes to be appropriate source material for modellers. Indeed, they represent the books that I, were I a dedicated modeller, would wish someone else to write. In many instances I have pondered that the nine railway books are an act of preserving a recent historical era for all time, while it still exists in living memory.

Great motivations, all, but in reflection, that is not what Steam Over Palmerston, Steam to the Niagara Frontier, et al, are about. What they are, no more and no less, are documented experiences of the idyllic summer day of Friday, June 25, 1954 from a variety of personally-chosen perspectives. Flights of fancy for a curious boy born in 1960, who was always intrigued by the era of steam which came to an end just months before he was born. Although they are exhaustively researched and painstakingly crafted, the railway volumes in the "Steam Series" are no more than subjective reports, moment-to-moment, of a wished-for day which has otherwise swirled past us in the never-ceasing torrent of Time.

I am invariably asked, and flattered in the process, questions by railway fans and modellers such as: 'When will you cover the Canadian Pacific?' and 'Have you any plans to do the city of Toronto?' and 'What about the Wabash?' or "How about the Grand Trunk Western?'. My honest responses, now clearer with the passage of time, are "Probably never". It's not that I don't enjoy learning about railways and territory and eras outside the scope of what I've covered. It's not that I don't think I could do these, and other, suggested topics justice. No, the answer is much simpler: it's just that I've not yet had the desire to visit those places and settings in my imagination. And if I haven't been there, I cannot write about them.

Yesterday, I described some personal aspects of Steam Memories of Lindsay which motivated my writing. Today, I am reflecting on my one-day adventure in June 1954 as related in Steam Echoes of Hamilton. For part of that afternoon of Friday, June 25, 1954, I visited the north shore of Lake Erie at Port Dover. There, in the refreshing offshore breezes, I poked around among the wharves, fishing tugs and greenhouses. Of course, there was a steam locomotive involved, with a short mixed train, raining cinders down on the village upon departure. You can experience part of that wonderful day through my account in this excerpt from Steam Echoes of Hamilton.