Okay, so I came onto this site for the Urban Exploration bit, but since there is a train section and I technically did a little Urban Exploring on this trip I figure I might as well contribute something.
Here are a few shots from a 2 week trip I did train hopping and camping in Northern Ontario this Month ;)
Alright this first picture isn't much but it was the best I could do with my camera the night of departure and its the starting point of the story. I arrived in town around 5pm just as my train was leaving without me and I didn't end up getting another train out until 5am the next day.
It was -14C with the wind chill but I had the right gear. I did however manage to rip my pants and military sleeping bag zipper within the first hour
To my amazement I managed to grab a nice warm loco which took me all the way to Mactier; where I was to camp for two days before meeting up with Andrew and then heading North.
I'm not much of a smoker but when I ride trains theres nothing better than a smoke and a coffee to start the day
Lake Ontario on a cold January morning
Rolling westward through Toronto
Turning North at the Doncaster Diamond
Looking into CP's Vaughn intermodal facility
A shot of my ride in Matier as I got off..done with the "Mitch" slant for style
Again just random freight made cool with the "Mitch" slant
Of course the first order of Business as my train rolled on was to start setting my camp for the next 2 or so nights.
After a couple hours it looked fit for a uh king
Heading into town for supplies I came across this hobo ready ride complete with shelter and port-o-potty.
Got my supplies....now all I needed was a good meal
Enjoying a few drinks by the fire while drying my clothing. After a few to many I decided to expedite the drying of my socks. Long story short I wasn't paying attention and they caught on fire.
I tired to put them out but by then they were half gone so I just said !@#$ it and threw them in. they burnt really well
I managed to puke over half of my belongings that night and the next morning I had an interesting bowl movement in waist deep snow without TP present..but I'll spare you guys all those details :)
Looking westward into Mactier second night
Westbound freight pulling in over night - shot from my half standing shelter. I was too lazy/buzzed after dark to get all dressed up and look for wood so I started using it to fuel the fire...after all I was moving out after a couple days so might as well start taking it down :/
Finally after the third night it was time to meet up with Andrew. He showed up early morning as scheduled and we were off.
A hobo tag inside the washroom on board our first locomotive together
Approaching Sudbury it almost looked like we we're in the rockies
Andrew enjoying the nice ride North
Heading further North there where soooo many lakes. I must have a million shots like this..Ill just post one
This shot was taken around 7am where we we're supposed to get off. I was tiered, it was freezing rain and I didn't want to admit to myself that it was time to leave the warm confines of the locomotive . So I just hoped it was one crew change beforehand and that I could go back to sleep.
Of course as we rolled through town it quickly became apparent that we just missed our stop. Some guide I am!
same spot looking back
About an hour or so past town the train stopping in a random siding, so we hopped off and hoped the highway wasn't too far of a hike away.
We waited until a freight passed in the opposite direction then headed to where we hoped the highway was.
Of course it ended up being a 45 min treck though knee deep snow with all my winter gear....not fun but I was warm
once we reached the highway it was time to hitch it back to town. Only thing was it was snowing really bad and also New years eve. There was one car in each direction once every 15 mins, we planned on being there for a while.
We made it back to Schreiber surprisingly fast. After a pit stop for lunch at "The Hungry Moose" (which was great if your ever in the area), we headed down to Lake Superior to camp on the...beach.
As you can see everything was by now covered in a nice layer of ice.
There was a map by the road on how to get there but we couldn't find any of the trails, and well the map looked like a retarded blind guy drew it. We took the long way and followed an icy road.
At some point we saw a snowmobile trail that looked like it may be a shortcut. Not long after we realized it just went back up hill, not wanting to walk all the way back to the road we decided to bush wack it since well... the lake couldn't be that
far...!@#$%Turns out we were wrong, back to knee deep snow, now mixed with rivers, brush, and cliffs...but I was warm!
Finally after a hell tour we managed to find the lake. You could see where the beach froze and the river we tried to follow to get here had washed it away.
We found a great spot just across the river but we needed to build a bridge to it first
After setting up camp we made beans an wieners on a fire like any real man would. We also managed to score some pre cut and dried wood from a boarded up cottage down the way. So after struggling with wet tinder and kindling we got the fire big enough to burn logs and we were golden.
THe next morning I woke up in a nice layer of snow
The wind was insane that morning so we took shelter at a boarded up cottage, cooked break fast and then made our way to the yard to catch a train further North.
Once up top the wind blew even harder
We arrived here at around 11am and this area is pretty much where we waited until 9pm in the freezing cold for our train to finally show up. Trains came by, but not the ones we needed nor wanted to take.
This was probably the coldest of the 9 days/nights by far..I was definitely thinking about home this day
Of course the stove was out of fuel and we didn't want to struggle with a fire. I remembered I had bought a big bag of trail mix and even though it wasn't hot we decided to snack on them.
They were really great but after we got our train I started feeling woozy. At first I though it was from eating too much then trying to sleep but sadly I was wrong.
We both ended up getting a bad case of food poisoning. We took turns puking a good chunk of the night, and this wasn't the thing one needs when out fighting off the cold....
Awesome diner in Kenora...please note the 2 bags of chips in the display cabinet....such a cool rickety place. Even though we couldn't eat our meals they let us sit here for a good two hours, just staring like into space like...
This was what we managed to eat and I literally only took one bite of my bacon before having to send our food back. Andrew fared better and managed to eat a piece of toast and a piece of potato..hes a champ and food poisoning is a bitch.
We had dreamed for three days about a nice greasy breakfast and when we finally got it some stupid trail mix stole our joy ;?
Back at the catch out ready to head west again
We managed to grab the end of the train which made for some amazing views.
Sunrise over Northern Ontario
a little more of sunrise
This picture isnt much to look at but all along the mainlines are huge factories that have gone bust and are now abandoned. We had planned on doing some freight riding/ urban exploring/camping once the summer rolls in......any one down for the tours???
Northern Ontario snow covered lake
passing train from the front
This was taken while stopped at a crew change. I just had to jump out and try to get the train and the amazing northern sky in one shot.
Much nice quality on the origional
door
Okay short version of the story:
So our train broke down just south of Sudbury ...(lots happened cut out to shorten story)... and by this point our locomotive was brought up to the the front of the train (from the very back) and was second to the front unit with the crew in it. The train stopped in a siding and one of the workers ended up coming back to our ride.
We crammed all our bags in the washroom and then us in with them. These washrooms are smaller than a greyhounds so with the bags in there me and Andrew were practically hugging.
It took a while for him to get to us and for a bit I thought maybe he was just looking at something on the outside. Well the guy ended up coming in and sitting about a meter from the bathroom door.
We could hear him breathing and rustling around. He was talking to himself and kept saying don't get sick, so I was pretty much sure we were done. He would need to hurl and we would be in his way. I was hoping he was just there for a smoke but it didn't sound like it. I was worried he was going to ride it all the way and pretty much decided if that was the case I was gonna just bust out and be like dude....
After about 5 mins the radio in the cab came on and it turns out the locomotive is DONE and the train isn't going anywhere. So now it was just a matter of waiting until a van came to pick them up 20 mins later.
Sweat was dripping from everywhere and I was not happy but what could we do.
Anyhow we heard over the radio that the road to where the train was was really bad and the driver didn't want to drive all the way in fears of getting stuck. Of course this lazy bastard wanted to sit in the cab(with us sweating bullets in the can) and make her drive to him. Finally she came to get them, they left and busting out of the washroom we could breath again.
After a bit of discussion on how to play the situation we decided to stick with the train and wait until the next crew came to take it to our destination. Only after waiting 3 hours we started to think it may not be going anywhere anytime soon.
Upon exiting the train we walked 5 mins towards the road and saw two vehicles at the end parked, so we did what any train hopper would do and made up a story on why we where in the middle of nowhere in the night and headed over to say hi.
We walk up and say hello and they didn't seemed fazed at all. Turns out the driver got stuck and a tow truck had been there for an hour or so trying to get them out.
We offered to help to see if we could use it to get a ride to the highway but it was soon apparent there was nothing we could do and we didn't feel like waiting around so we started trekking
While lazy train crew guy was arguing with the driver over where they were, we heard them talk about the old military road with an abandoned military prison on it. Needless to say that was the road we had to walk to get to the highway so we went in search of it.
Finally coming upon this sign..so we went further.
and so we walked on in
and then we found these signs, so we walk on by...the long way so they wouldn't see our footprints
once in we started seeing sings of civilization
and then strange graves or not sure
Then only to find that everything had been demolished and was only fields now. So we went back to the 6km road to the highway
Of course after a loooong walk towards the highway we finally come across a plague letting us know that indeed the whole complex was leveled
We tried to take a short cut to the highway since we walked enough and the road just kept going ooon. We left for the highway from the train at 8am and it was now 11am. Of course every short cut has its one damn issue (much like train yards).
Deciding we would rather jump the river then walk all the way around properly I began to search for the edge. Before I knew it Andrew ran for the crossing and just when he was going to jump he hit a patch of hollow ice. He fell through then in.
Made my day and was pretty funny. I did a little better but still managed to get a leg in. Luckily we were heading to town so it wasn't a big survival issue.
The only issue was we hadn't changed clothing in 9 days, on top of that we were dirty, unshaven and now we smelled like swamp water...but we actually got picked up after a couple hours :)
