October 1st, 1988 - Train 617, Heading North

By 1:00 PM, we are well on our way, having passed Gordon Yard, Catamount and now following New Brunswick highway 126 North.

Highway 126 brings many fond memories. To most, it's simply a narrow secondary highway that goes from Moncton's Magnetic Hill to Newcastle. Along the way, it's your typical country road with farms, lumber mills, the odd gas station with no more than 2 pumps at the time as well as numerous village churches.

More important than all that are the many rivers that my dad and I have fished along that highway. We'd often go out on Saturday mornings in the summer. May through June was the best as the waters would drop in level and warm up in July and August. We would still go, the fishing was just not as good. So I'd spend the few nights before going fishing watering the lawn in the hopes of luring out some nightcrawlers. Fishing was something that I was really good at and usually outfished dad. We've fished for bass, perch, salmon, chubb and basicly anything that would swim. The fish that was king for us was of course the trout, more specifically brookies and the almighty sea trout.

Saturday morning would come, we'd always plan on hitting the road by 6am to catch breakfast at the Irving Big Stop on Lutz Mountain on the way to the 126. That is how we knew where we were going. "Going up the 126 dad?" was generally the decision maker. We'd plan on hitting the water by 7:30 to get a good days fishing in. Now on the way back, we'd always and I mean always stop at one of those two pump gas stations to pick up a big bag of Hostess chips and pop. I tell you, greasy chips and a cold pop after a day in the sun was the best.

Of course, the alarm never woke me up and we never hit the river before at least 9am. We always stopped for breakfast at the Big Stop on the way up and always picked up that bag of chips on the way back.

Heading north along the 126 always brings back memories. As we speed along the track, every river that crosses the 126, crosses the tracks. It's now 1:10 PM and I just saw a sign for Rexton, we'll be pulling into our first scheduled stop shortly.

Come to think of it, if dad had spent half as much time fishing as he did watching me catch fish, he would have easily outfished me. I guess at the end of the day, that was the point all along.