Train of veterans greeted as heroes
Published: November 11, 2005
Pipers, flags, posters, cheers and applause greeted about 200 veterans as they arrived by train yesterday for the Remembrance Day memorial.
A crowd of about 300 people was on hand as the vets, almost all in their 80s, pulled in after a 24-hour trip from Halifax.
Some found the greeting overwhelming.
“I can’t believe it, to see all the people,” said Stuart Macdonald of Cape Breton as he shook hands with well- wishers.
He said the train had been cheered along all the way from Halifax.
“You wouldn’t believe all the people along the route, hundreds and hundreds.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Bill Arnold of Halifax. “It couldn’t have been better. It’s far better than we expected.”
Macdonald said it was nothing like the lonesome train trip that brought him home after his return from overseas in 1945.
“I came back off the ship in the evening, got on the train to my home in Cape Breton and I never saw nobody,” he said. “This is fantastic. After 60 years, it’s unreal.”
Arnold said the modern train was a far cry from the creaky carriages that hauled him and his Lorne Scots Regiment comrades from their Ontario homes to a troopship more than six decades ago.
“You wouldn’t believe the troop train I came down to Halifax in,” he chuckled.
“It was from the turn of the century; wood-burning stoves, kerosene lamps.
“And the damn thing, you could walk faster. It took three days and two nights to get to Halifax.”
Poppies and flags were everywhere as the vets shuffled through the clapping crowd. There were posters saying, “Thank you vets” and “We love you.”
The old soldiers, some in the faded wool khaki uniforms they wore 60 years ago, paused here and there to shake hands or to exchange words with a well-wisher.
Veterans Affairs Minister Albina Guarnieri greeted them and the 200 family members and supporters who accompanied them on the trip.
The 33-car train was the idea of two Via Rail employees.
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