Sentimental Journey: An Oral History of Train Travel in Canada

Gordon C. Shaw is professor emeritus in the Faculty of Administrative
Studies at York University.

Sentimental Journey is a collection of over 260 short stories about
railway travel in Canada, mostly during and just after World War II.
Well written and for the most part interesting, the stories vary in
length, with some running only a few hundred words. The subject matter
is similarly broad, ranging from a young runaway boy who is locked
inside a locomotive tender; to an Ontario laborer who travels to the
prairies on a harvesters’ excursion; to a man who smuggles live baby
chicks across the U.S. border. Chapter titles include “Battling the
Elements,” “The War Years,” “A Class Act,” “The Royal Tour
of 1939,” and “Wrecks and Runaways.” The book is not intended to
be serious railway history; there are none of the traditional stories
about driving last spikes or the machinations of the railway companies.
Instead, Sentimental Journey recalls the social history of a bygone era
when much Canadian life, especially in the small towns, revolved around
the railway station and the meeting of the trains.