July 3, 2014
Often have I looked covetously at the straight lines and gentle grades of the rail lines and dreamed about cycling along them instead of the winding, hilly roads. Today my yearning was answered. I spent the majority of the day on the Prescott-Russell trail, which takes you from Ottawa to the Quebec border. With finely crushed gravel, it’s a little slower than pavement but without a car in sight, worth every bit of the extra energy required. Cycling behind farmers’ fields and through forests took me back to cycling the Erie Canal a few years ago. It’s a little like exploring places through the back door or alley as the towns and villages are not oriented towards your path. The difference between the canal and the rail trail is that there are still little villages located along the canal which was not the case today. With the advent of the automobile, passenger travel by train died and slowly the villages dedicated to rail disappeared or developed towards the highway. For example, I passed a natural springs resort that at one time had three hotels and attending infrastructure. Today only open fields remained and a marker of a different time. All to say, I actually found the rail trail kind of lonesome, haunted by people and place no more.