.jpg)
Martin Boston still remembers unwrapping his first electric train, a gift from his father on Christmas Day, 1947. “It was my first train,” Martin says. “Since I was a very small boy, I have always been fascinated with trains.”
In 1956, still a teenager, Martin took his first job as a telegraph operator for Canadian National. He later became a bridge tender and served in that position until retiring in 1992. Even after a 36-year career on the railroad, Martin’s passion for trains hasn’t diminished. “I am still a big rail fan,” Martin says. “I always tell people that I was very lucky. I got paid to pursue my hobby for 36 years.”
In 1988, with the establishment of the OrangedaleRailwayMuseum in his community, Martin’s passion found a new outlet. After retirement, volunteering at the railway museum became his second career. He’s worked there for 20 years now, serving as volunteer tour guide, general handyman and, for the past 12 years, association president.
With the closure of many passenger lines over the past decades, many young Nova Scotians have never traveled by train. “Preserving Canada’s railway heritage is more important than ever,” Martin says. According to Martin, the story of the railway is Canada’s story, and it’s worth telling. “Without the railroad we wouldn’t have a Canada,” he says. “It was the railroad that joined this country together and built it up to what it is today.”
“The railway was once the lifeline for people in this country,” Martin says. “It played its part in our history. It’s hard to believe, but without the railroad, we would never have been able to keep up the war effort. The railway was once a very integral part of our lives.”
Martin keeps his childhood memories alive by sharing them with museum visitors, who are fascinated by the stories he tells. “I think one of my best memories was the first time I got to ride on a steam locomotive,” Martin says. As a young boy, he would wait on the platform for the locomotive to arrive. “The train pulled up to the station and the driver leaned out the window and said, ‘You want to go for a drive?’ I’d run up those steps and stay as long as they’d let me,” Martin says. “You can’t do things like that anymore.”
Later in high school, Martin would rush home every Friday afternoon, change into his work clothes, and join the crew en route from Port Hawkesbury to Inverness. “The crew just adopted me as part of their family,” Martin says. “It was a wonderful experience, and I will cherish those memories as long as I live.”
These days, Martin can often be found mentoring a new generation of railway enthusiasts at the OrangedaleRailwayMuseum. Although most of them are too young to remember passenger rail in CapeBreton, Martin is hopeful that some of these young people will step up to the plate and help keep the legacy of the railway alive.
Although the trains no longer run from Port Hawkesbury to Inverness, the old rail line has found new life as part of the Trans Canada Trail. One of Martin’s young friends from the museum wants to take him along the old route to Inverness by All Terrain Vehicle some warm spring day. “That’s a great offer,” says Martin. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about those trips I made to Inverness as a boy,” he says. “We’ll pack a picnic lunch and make a day of it. No doubt I’ll have a story to tell, and a tear to shed, for every mile.”