Railway Country: Across Canada by Train

David Mattison is a librarian with the B.C. Provincial Archives and
Records Services Library.

Witney and Johnson evoke the lure, boredom, and occasional thrill of riding the transcontinental rails of Canada. Packaged as a coffeetable book, Railway Country is one of the more expensive travel souvenirs. The text is arranged by region, beginning in the Maritimes and concluding with “The Mountains,” a new euphemism for British Columbia. Johnson talks about the history of the railway and relates various anecdotes about fellow passengers, among whom are the proverbial eccentrics such as the peevish Englishman. There is a pleasing mix of black-and-white vintage photographs from various archives and the candid views in color and black and white by Witney, many of which were taken from a moving train. Unlike the text, which respects the geography of the trip, the photographs hop all over the landscape. More attention was paid to harmonizing visual elements, so the photographs are a kind of pictorial symphony which is out of sync with the score.

A pleasing and different addition is a synoptic guide to Canadian railways giving facts and figures. Maps in each chapter depict the major rail lines and help sort out the various place names. Some of the information is out of date: North Bend, on the Fraser River, is now reached by a highway bridge, not by the aerial cable ferry mentioned in one photo caption. The photographic reproduction quality is generally good; some of the color is not enhanced through extreme enlargement. Buyers might wish to look at some of the other recent Canadian railway books prior to purchasing this impressionistic but attractive package.