About the Book
People remembered…
the boardwalk, concessions, the Moonlight Inn, picnics, the carousel, the dancing pavilion, Daddy Trains, beach romances, Hot Lips ginger beer, bands, Morse code, ice boxes, honey pot toilets, red boards, the wye, fishflies, bittersweet vine, the Snowshoe Special, and a bygone era when passengers felt part of one big family.
From the deep, dank bowels of a century-old railway station, a roll of unused tickets surfaced for Canadian National Railway´s Victoria Beach Subdivision line. Sixty years after train service to the east shores of Lake Winnipeg ceased, a writer embarked on a journey of discovery. Creepy crawls through cemeteries, walks on wooden trestles, and strolls through Manitoba´s cottage country revealed a transplanted station, a time capsule, and the design plans for the beloved Grand Beach carousel.
I love the way you write. You have captured the sweetness of my parents´ romance.
— Cheri Bird, Vancouver
[This book] takes you back in time to the wonderful, fun-filled days of the past.
— Diane Truderung, author and editor, Transcona´s Story – 100 Years of Progress
A great book. The stories collected tell us what it smelled like, felt like, and sounded like to be on those trains. You have recreated a whole world that has now disappeared.
— Jim Blanchard, Winnipeg historian
About the Author
Barbara LangeBarbara Lange grew up in a railway family in Brentwood, Essex, England. Her father was a British Railways ticket collector. She and her two daughters, Sheryl and Lisa, immigrated to Canada in 1978. Barbara was a secretary at the Faculty of Human Ecology, University of Manitoba for 20 years. Since retirement she has produced two railway-themed anthologies, Through the Window of a Train: A Canadian Railway Anthology, and Memories of the Moonlight Special and Grand Beach Train Era. She and her husband Larry, a retired Canadian National carman from Transcona, often travel west on VIAÕs historic Canadian train.
204-667-8521
email: railwaystories@hotmail.com
