… is this area known as the French Fry Capital Of The World. And not for nothing does it have the world’s largest food processing plant. It’s the potato harvesting time and you can’t move on the roads without squidging a potato that has fallen off the back of an overleaded potato lorry.

And with the weather having been dry for the last while or so there are clouds of dust all over the horizon where the potato rippers are out harvesting this years crop. All this automation is a far cry from when I used to go spud-bashing as a kid.

You never know – the McCain Frozen Chips that you eat next yar light be the very ones that you are seeing here being ripped out

After that, I’ve been hunting down old railway lines.

As we mentioned the other day, there was formerly a railway line that ran along the banks of the Saint Jonh River, and a branch left the main line at Woodstock to come up to Centreville. In fact, the tractor-pulling track in Centreville is situated on the former site of the railway goods yard.

I set out today to see if there were any vestiges of the old line still remaining, and here on the edge of town I found, not darkness, but an old bridge that very likely carried the line over the river that runs through the town.

It looks as if it’s in the correct place and going in the correct direction so it’s a fairly safe bet.

Further along the road is the town of Lakeville and on the back road that runs (eventually) to the Saint John River is where the old track bed crosses the road.

And knowing nothing at all about anything related to this railway line, this is the site that looks to me like the most logical site to have built the railway station.

As I have said before, only in the UK has everything that there is to be known about all railway lines in the country been recorded and documented. In all other countries of the world, the old abandoned railway lines have simply been forgotten.

And as I have also said before … "and you will say again" – ed … Canada ruthlessly out-Beechinged Beeching when it came to savaging the country’s rail network. There’s practically nothing left of it, and passenger transport is definitely a thing of the past.

This afternoon I spent sitting in a Ford Ranger 4×4 pickup. 2011 (so it is probably one of the very last to be made), white, one owner, main-agent maintained, 49,000 kms on the clock and looking as if it’s just come out of the factory. It was love at first sight, I’ll tell you that, but the price tag of a mere $16950 means that the love will remain unrequited.

But it was a magnificent vehicle, a credit to its previous owner, and probably worth every penny of its sale tag.

It was at the Ford main agent in Woodstock and I ended up having a long chat with the owner. They do have Rangers in fairly often but very few make it onto the forecourt. Most of them are sent straight away to the auctions at Moncton. Anyway, he now knows what I’m looking for and, more in hope that expectation, he has my phone number.

I crashed out this afternoon at the side of the road – I had another really bad night last night and was still awake at 05:00 – and then came back here for tea. Now I’m off for an early night.

And October already.

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