
Train Bridge by John Climenhage, 2001-2005 oil on panel 6″x8″
The Iron Horse Arrives in Peterborough by Tom Mohr »
Train Bridge “Altogether, Peterborough possesses all the elements of an important manufacturing town. The immense water power supplied by the Otonabee River, and the large timber districts in the rear of the town, offer facilities for manufacturing such as are possessed by few communities in the Province. With the railway facilities now possessed by the town, the easy method of ingress and egress; with the improvements which are going on in the interior country; the rapid settlement of that hitherto unsurveyed and almost unexplored country; and the improvements lately made in the navigations of the back waters, - the prospects of the town are flattering in the extreme”. - T&R White, “1858 Directory of the United Counties of Peterborough & Victoria for 1858” Once a vital block of track now a rusted petard the local kids explode off without a red fleck of understanding of the facility with which brand old white power used to mow and grow through this now entirely explored country. The rails here barely run, and the loggers cut down any amount of clarity in the backwaters, now the precedent keeps the lifeguards at Rogers Cove deciding daily how much E-coli the leaping kids can take before shutting the water down. The canal, tho, mercifully moves at a decent clip, the poison moves away, or used to, before real estate was EVERYWHERE. Now, the kids throw themselves off different things, less liquid landings, in the face of the history of the gods their parents used to be. There’s just no justice for all this horseshit anymore. Don’t kid yourself. The cannonballs falling off the bridges now grow up aware of the rust on the bridge, the new monster the awareness that there’s a new lifelong monster dying at peace in a righteous sleep every minute, the reflection off the water, looking down for the dive, for the kids, flattening in the extreme― -JM
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