Not Just ANY Train-Spotter - April 25, 2021
We are Public Health Unit approved childcare providers for Jasper. It’s not that we passed a test. Surely not! Rather, because we have taken Jasper on a weekly basis so his parents can work – and caring for a newborn and recovering from a cesarian section is work! – we can hang out with him, even during lockdown.
So we show up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around 1:15 pm, and Tuesday and Thursday around 10:15 am. We only keep him for about two hours. Sometimes less; sometimes longer. It depends on what we can find to do.
Having just one 3 ½ year old who is easy to care for should be easy-peasy. Heck, at one point we had four kids under the age of 10. But covid has complicated things.
We are not allowed to bring Jasper to our place. We live in a seniors’ apartment building and many of the people here are very elderly and / or have existing health challenges. And I truly respect this.
And there are no play places to change things up. The Early On Centres are closed. Cheeky Monkeys? Closed. Skyzone Trampoline Park? Closed. Fairview bowling lanes? Also closed!
Before lockdown, on a cold day we could go “mall-walking” at the Penn Centre – the reward being a Hot Wheels car from the Dollar Store, and three trips on the escalator. (Small minds; small pleasures. I’m referring to us.)
Bless his heart, Laurence has mapped out about 20 of the 73 playground parks in St Catharines. Jasper knows all their names and features. And we have visited all of these repeatedly. In fact we have what we call “The Playground Buffet.” It’s a four-course event – a half-hour at four different playgrounds. (A little less when you include driving time.)
But I think all three of us are getting a little playgrounded out. Or at least Grumpa and Granny are. In the last video of Grumpa Laur riding on the purple dinosaur spring-horse with Jasper, GL looks like he too is heading for extinction.
We do some boat-spotting. We live near the Welland Canal, and on some days we can spot two boats. If we are really lucky, we can watch two pass each other in the canal or watch while a lock fills up or empties. But there are days there isn’t a boat to be spotted.
Jasper does have a passion for garbage trucks, but chasing them around St. Catharines – well, even we have some standards. Minimal as they are.
What Jasper loves the most, however, is the rarest method of transportation to be found in St. Cats. TRAINS! One day we were super lucky and saw a three car Trillium train heading back to Welland from the Grantham Spur line. http://www.niagararails.com/grantham.phtml
We zipped over to a place we could park and ran to the side of the tracks. Our frantic waving was rewarded by the blaring of the train horn. Jasper was ECSTATIC! If only I could find out the schedule for this train, we’d be able to do at least one less playground every day.
*****
Friday morning I told hubs I’d like to walk along a rail line. For whatever reason, if I have things I want to sort out or find solace for my soul, walking along train tracks is the way to go. So we walked from our house to the North End of the Grantham Spur and started following it south and east.
At one point I said to Laur, “I hear something that sounds like a train!” And then we both realized, “It’s a train!” And we hopped off the tracks. As the train approached us, we started waving our arms like we were fighting off black flies. The engineer rewarded us with a generous honk of his horn.
We followed it while it dropped off a tanker car at one industry, and then picked up two box cars at another. Then – oh my goodness! – the train stopped. I went charging over to talk to them, explaining I wasn’t just ANY trainspotter. Oh no, I was the daughter of a CN engineer and grandmother to a 3 ½ year old train lover. Tom and Randy were very patient. Trainspotters are a dime a dozen. They even asked my Dad’s name (Bob Carrie) because they too were CN engineers before retirement.
I asked what their schedule is and they said Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – but could not predict what time it would be. They have to use part of a CN line, and a 100 car train takes precedence over a three car one. Biscuits! Back to driving to the corner of Berryman and Yale in hope.
On Friday afternoon we picked up Jasper and told him about our good fortune. We even showed him pictures and videos. He was a mix of happy and sad – happy to see the pics, sad that he missed out.
On our way to our buffet of playgrounds – his choices – we spotted a road closure on Queenston and many fire engines. Hubs found a parking spot not far from this area, and we walked over to see what has happening. (Jasper: “What does ‘happening’ mean?”)
Jasper and his caregivers (us) got to see a firetruck at work – blasting water into a now burnt out building. There were actually four firetrucks at the scene – though Jasper argues that there were only three. He got to see a hose attached to a hydrant, the firefighters’ outfits and air tanks, and the firefighters start to put their hoses away. (Sadly, he also got to see a woman crying about the loss of her home. The place was completely gutted.)
Jasper still got to go three parks that day. At Douglas, he and Grumpa put on a bongo drum and xylophone performance. At Princess, a garbage truck went by twice and honked at us both times – by request. 😊 Then to Barley – home of the purple dinosaur spring horse mentioned earlier.
On the way back home I reviewed – more like rehearsed for his parents’ sakes – what we had done that day. “We went to THREE parks – Douglas, Princess, and Barley. AND we saw firefighters putting out a fire. AND a garbage truck honked at us TWO times!”
Jasper’s comment? “But I didn’t get to see a train…”
Oh dear. So I have written to Trillium Railway – now owned by RioRail – asking…
1. Are there any lines that have a lot of traffic and/or have a train go by at a specific time?
2. Is there any way we can come to “the yard” so he can see a train up close and get a picture with a train engineer?
I have bought the child-sized train-driver’s hat. I am hoping for a positive reply. In my closing sentence I said, “Think of it as growing a new generation of train lovers.” 😊
*****
Next up – Adventures in Gardening!
So we show up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around 1:15 pm, and Tuesday and Thursday around 10:15 am. We only keep him for about two hours. Sometimes less; sometimes longer. It depends on what we can find to do.
Having just one 3 ½ year old who is easy to care for should be easy-peasy. Heck, at one point we had four kids under the age of 10. But covid has complicated things.
We are not allowed to bring Jasper to our place. We live in a seniors’ apartment building and many of the people here are very elderly and / or have existing health challenges. And I truly respect this.
And there are no play places to change things up. The Early On Centres are closed. Cheeky Monkeys? Closed. Skyzone Trampoline Park? Closed. Fairview bowling lanes? Also closed!
Before lockdown, on a cold day we could go “mall-walking” at the Penn Centre – the reward being a Hot Wheels car from the Dollar Store, and three trips on the escalator. (Small minds; small pleasures. I’m referring to us.)
Bless his heart, Laurence has mapped out about 20 of the 73 playground parks in St Catharines. Jasper knows all their names and features. And we have visited all of these repeatedly. In fact we have what we call “The Playground Buffet.” It’s a four-course event – a half-hour at four different playgrounds. (A little less when you include driving time.)
But I think all three of us are getting a little playgrounded out. Or at least Grumpa and Granny are. In the last video of Grumpa Laur riding on the purple dinosaur spring-horse with Jasper, GL looks like he too is heading for extinction.
We do some boat-spotting. We live near the Welland Canal, and on some days we can spot two boats. If we are really lucky, we can watch two pass each other in the canal or watch while a lock fills up or empties. But there are days there isn’t a boat to be spotted.
Jasper does have a passion for garbage trucks, but chasing them around St. Catharines – well, even we have some standards. Minimal as they are.
What Jasper loves the most, however, is the rarest method of transportation to be found in St. Cats. TRAINS! One day we were super lucky and saw a three car Trillium train heading back to Welland from the Grantham Spur line. http://www.niagararails.com/grantham.phtml
We zipped over to a place we could park and ran to the side of the tracks. Our frantic waving was rewarded by the blaring of the train horn. Jasper was ECSTATIC! If only I could find out the schedule for this train, we’d be able to do at least one less playground every day.
*****
Friday morning I told hubs I’d like to walk along a rail line. For whatever reason, if I have things I want to sort out or find solace for my soul, walking along train tracks is the way to go. So we walked from our house to the North End of the Grantham Spur and started following it south and east.
At one point I said to Laur, “I hear something that sounds like a train!” And then we both realized, “It’s a train!” And we hopped off the tracks. As the train approached us, we started waving our arms like we were fighting off black flies. The engineer rewarded us with a generous honk of his horn.
We followed it while it dropped off a tanker car at one industry, and then picked up two box cars at another. Then – oh my goodness! – the train stopped. I went charging over to talk to them, explaining I wasn’t just ANY trainspotter. Oh no, I was the daughter of a CN engineer and grandmother to a 3 ½ year old train lover. Tom and Randy were very patient. Trainspotters are a dime a dozen. They even asked my Dad’s name (Bob Carrie) because they too were CN engineers before retirement.
I asked what their schedule is and they said Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – but could not predict what time it would be. They have to use part of a CN line, and a 100 car train takes precedence over a three car one. Biscuits! Back to driving to the corner of Berryman and Yale in hope.
On Friday afternoon we picked up Jasper and told him about our good fortune. We even showed him pictures and videos. He was a mix of happy and sad – happy to see the pics, sad that he missed out.
On our way to our buffet of playgrounds – his choices – we spotted a road closure on Queenston and many fire engines. Hubs found a parking spot not far from this area, and we walked over to see what has happening. (Jasper: “What does ‘happening’ mean?”)
Jasper and his caregivers (us) got to see a firetruck at work – blasting water into a now burnt out building. There were actually four firetrucks at the scene – though Jasper argues that there were only three. He got to see a hose attached to a hydrant, the firefighters’ outfits and air tanks, and the firefighters start to put their hoses away. (Sadly, he also got to see a woman crying about the loss of her home. The place was completely gutted.)
Jasper still got to go three parks that day. At Douglas, he and Grumpa put on a bongo drum and xylophone performance. At Princess, a garbage truck went by twice and honked at us both times – by request. 😊 Then to Barley – home of the purple dinosaur spring horse mentioned earlier.
On the way back home I reviewed – more like rehearsed for his parents’ sakes – what we had done that day. “We went to THREE parks – Douglas, Princess, and Barley. AND we saw firefighters putting out a fire. AND a garbage truck honked at us TWO times!”
Jasper’s comment? “But I didn’t get to see a train…”
Oh dear. So I have written to Trillium Railway – now owned by RioRail – asking…
1. Are there any lines that have a lot of traffic and/or have a train go by at a specific time?
2. Is there any way we can come to “the yard” so he can see a train up close and get a picture with a train engineer?
I have bought the child-sized train-driver’s hat. I am hoping for a positive reply. In my closing sentence I said, “Think of it as growing a new generation of train lovers.” 😊
*****
Next up – Adventures in Gardening!