Rest stop at the old rail crossing

Eastbound
Komoka, ON
July 2021
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The rail line serves as a border between a sleepy exurb subdivision and pristine farmland, a steel dividing line between quiet lives far from the city and the fields that conceivably feed them.

I've stopped here because it's hot, and I need to refuel before I turn the bike toward home way too many kilometres thataway. I carry my own water and snacks, and as I munch away next to the crossing signals, I take note of the tracks beside my front tire.

They're old, their weathered, splintered ties disappearing into a mess of grit, gravel, and weeds. This is not a glittering high-speed rail line - just a tired stretch of track in the countryside that seems like an ideal analog to Canada's historic ignorance of its railway heritage.

Yet I still find myself drawn to places like this.

Maybe they echo what it took to pull this geographically-vast land into an economically feasible network of communities.

Maybe they reflect the small communities from coast to coast to coast that still rely on them to keep the lights on.

Maybe the romance of life on the rails still flickers amid the crushed railbed and rusting spikes that anchor the track.

As is often the case, I have no real answers to the silent questions posed by this too-often-overlooked place as my mind firms up the route for the ride home. And soon enough, it's time to get back on the pedals.

But part of me wonders what it might be like to ride a freight train back to the city at the other end of the line.

Part of me wonders what the future of rail travel will look like in places like this.

Part of me wonders why I wonder about things like this at all.

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