Train spotting

Yesterday to Smith's Falls to see the falls, to find that they were missing, swallowed up in the water works needed to build the Rideau Canal. And we just missed the Hershey chocolate factory, once the employer of 500 souls and the destination for countless coachloads of chocoholics. Its loss was a big deal for a town of this size.

But there were train spotting compensations. We went over a number of level crossings, something which one is hard to put to find in the UK these days, beyond the one between Raynes Park and Motspur Park,

We found the derelict bridge illustrated. The first time that I have seen such a thing outside of a boy's book of engineering wonders of the world.

We found an outdoor railway museum, containing heritage locos and rolling stock. Sadly, no time to visit.

We passed a huge train, which must have been a mile or more long and which involved at least two rather shabby looking Canadian Pacific locomotives, not, I think, at the front of the train, rather somewhere in the middle. A good part of the train was tank cars, presumably for moving oil from Alberta, presumably empty as the train was moving slowly west. It may have been a train like this which crashed into a town in Quebec, with considerable loss of life, a few years ago. I think someone forgot to put the brake on and the thing ran away. Been in the papers quite recently, perhaps in connection with a government report on rail safety.

Lunch of a Canadian-Italian variety at Norm's Restaurant. Very good it was too; just what one would hope to find in a small town in the wilds of Ontario. The place with the purple blind, across the road from RBC, at gmaps 44.9004322,-76.0212791. To follow the lasagne, there were no puddings, but there was a selection of pies. I didn't fancy rhubard & raspberry (combined operations, not two different pies) and took an excellent lemon meringue. Just like mother used to make, all those years ago.

And I see from gmaps that Smith's Falls includes considerable railroad infrastructure, so accounting for the presence of the museum. They clearly needed something to shift all that chocolate.

Reference 1: http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/.

Reference 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridges_of_Madison_County.

Reference 3: http://www.smithsfalls.ca/railwaymuseumofeasternonta.cfm. Museum site proper was unresponsive this morning.