Editorially speaking...
Being an armchair adventurer has never been my thing.
It has never been enough for me just to read about something that I find particularly interesting, particularly if it’s historical and within reach.
No, I’ve always wanted to see it for myself, to touch, to take photos—to feel—then write about it. And you can ‘t get much more hands-on than by using a metal detector.
A perfect case in point is this week’s and last’s two-part series on the Ladysmith train wreck. I learned of this tragedy through Bob Dougan then went looking for any remaining wreckage on my own. Originally, I just bushwhacked until I found a mass of twisted metal with a maple tree growing up through the middle of it.
This appears to be one of the two locomotives’ tenders, the coal carriers that rode immediately behind the engines. Fanning out for several hundred feet parallel to the tracks, and using just my rake, I found two coupling pins, one from each train; I make this surmise because the pins are two sizes—ergo, one from each train.
If that makes me an Indiana Jones, a ‘desecrater’ of historic sites, so be it. In all my years I’ve never seen a museum curator or staffer working up a sweat or risking a broken fingernail in the outdoors other than a very few anthropologists who were conducting archaeological digs. Even they seem to hang up their shovels pretty quickly.
Besides, the artifacts (such as they are) that I’ve found over the years will ultimately be bequeathed to appropriate museums and historical societies.
So, to accompany today’s Part 2 of ‘Terror on the Tracks,’ these great photos by Bill Irvine of Victoria who’s into his 80s and who still hikes almost every day, year-round.
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Top left: Doing it the hard way—rummaging through the bush in search of clues. Centre: Doug McLeod shows off a rusty piece from one of the trains. Right: Jennifer Goodbrand checks out the crumpled remains of a tender in the trees. Below: We pause at this old E&N bridge.—Bill Irvine photos
Below, more of the tender. Several years ago, the property owner graciously allowed us to scratch around; he didn’t know what the rusty scrap pile with the tree growing out of it was until I told him.
