{"id":16426,"date":"2022-10-23T23:38:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T23:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=16426"},"modified":"2024-05-04T14:03:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-04T14:03:40","slug":"sunday-23rd-october-2022-day-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=16426","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 23rd October 2022 &#8211; DAY FOUR &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; of my enforced hibernation and I&#8217;ve actually made it out of the house.<\/p>\n<p>And even as we speak, I am hurtling through the night and the Canadian Maritime Forest somewhere in between Miramichi and Bathurst. Well, not exactly &#8220;hurtling&#8221; because the speed of this train is, shall we say, &#8220;disappointing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Last night I went to bed early with the idea of having a decent 10-hour sleep but in actual fact I didn&#8217;t sleep at all. Not for a minute. I saw every minute of that ten hours and probably much more besides.<\/p>\n<p>When the alarm went off I arose from the bed, did some paperwork and then packed everything ready to go. We had a hot drink and then headed to the bus stop in Florenceville. We arrived early for the bus too &#8211; regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on one occasion it came early and left me behind.<\/p>\n<p>The drive down to Moncton in the frost was quite uneventful.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100050.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100050.jpg\" alt=\"coach atlantic prevost 1921 maritime bus fredericton new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022\"  class=\"alignleft\" width=\"220\" height=\"150\"\/><\/a>There was also quite a lot of fog everywhere this morning as you can tell in this photo taken at the company&#8217;s offices in Fredericton.<\/p>\n<p>We stopped there to pick up passengers and the wait meant that we could nip to the bathroom at the petrol station next door.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, I&#8217;m a big fan of these Prevost coaches. They are nice and big and comfortable. Although this one is registered in Nova Scotia you&#8217;ll notice that the licence plate says &#8220;apportioned&#8221;. What that apparently means is that the road tax is shared between Nova Scotia and the other Provinces in which the vehicle operates. <\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll see that it carries passenger authorisation plates for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p>Our bus was not actually all that late, which makes a change. But now there&#8217;s a four-hour wait for the train, always assuming that it&#8217;s on time of course, which is unlikely.<\/p>\n<p>When they opened the check-in, I deposited my suitcase and staggered over to the chemist&#8217;s for some medication, and then across the road to Sobey&#8217;s for some supplies for the journey. I suppose that I&#8217;m going to start eating and I want to have some food when I&#8217;m ready.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100051.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100051.jpg\" alt=\"general electric GE ES44AC 2754 canadian national EMD SD60F 5551 moncton railway station moncton new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022\"  class=\"alignleft\" width=\"220\" height=\"150\"\/><\/a>Waiting here in the waiting room at Moncton station a train suddenly appeared, so I photographed it thinking that it was mine.<\/p>\n<p>However it turned out to be a passing freight train, double-headed with a Canadian National locomotive that I couldn&#8217;t identify at the front. If it&#8217;s 9551, it&#8217;s a GP40-2LW built in 1975.<\/p>\n<p>The second locomotive is 2754 and is in the livery of Citibank&#8217;s &#8220;Citicorps Railmark Incorporated&#8221;, a company that leases railway equipment to various railways, but she was apparently actually purchased by Canadian National earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s a model ES44AC built by my former employers, General Electric, and a similar locomotive carrying that number was built for the Union Pacific Railroad. <br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100052.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/2210\/22100052.jpg\" alt=\"viarail train moncton railway station moncton new brunswick Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022\"  class=\"alignleft\" width=\"220\" height=\"150\"\/><\/a>My train pulled up a short time later, double-headed by two locomotives that I was not able to identify. She was only 20 minutes late, which is something of a record,<\/p>\n<p>As you can see, the train went past the station and then reversed in to the platform which seemed to me like a strange way to do things but it obviously works for them.<\/p>\n<p>Once it was in at the platform we had to walk almost the whole length of the train to the carriage that was apparently allocated to us<\/p>\n<p>For a change, I&#8217;m in the modern part of the train. It might be much better fitted out but it&#8217;s not as comfortable which is rather bizarre.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p>So off we went with me coughing all the way, and I&#8217;ve eaten a banana and a lump of baguette, the first food that I&#8217;ve had for 72 hours. So now I&#8217;m going to settle down and try to sleep. Surely I can&#8217;t go 48 hours without any sleep at all?<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-16426 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='16426' data-nonce='b030ea971c' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-16426 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style1 unlike-16426 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='16426' data-nonce='b030ea971c' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-16426 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div> <div class='status-16426 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; of my enforced hibernation and I&#8217;ve actually made it out of the house. And even as we speak, I am hurtling through the night and the Canadian Maritime Forest somewhere in between Miramichi and Bathurst. Well, not exactly &#8220;hurtling&#8221; because the speed of this train is, shall we say, &#8220;disappointing&#8221;. Last night I went [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793,143,1404,4507,1521,7866,7721,1490,311,15540,4714,15538],"tags":[4788,5982,1624,7888,5507,2560,15886,1523,1263,15885,7867,1416,1493,312,15541,6140,4411],"class_list":["post-16426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bathurst","category-canada","category-centreville","category-eric-hall-2","category-florenceville","category-maritime-bus","category-miramichi","category-moncton","category-rachel","category-shoppers-drug-mart","category-sobeys","category-viarail","tag-bad-night","tag-bathurst","tag-canada-2","tag-canadian-national-railways","tag-centreville","tag-eric-hall","tag-es44ac","tag-florenceville-2","tag-general-electric","tag-gp-40","tag-maritime-bus","tag-miramichi","tag-moncton-2","tag-rachel-2","tag-shoppers-drug-mart","tag-sobeys","tag-viarail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18301,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16426\/revisions\/18301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}