Blues Mills man rode the rails of history
Martin Boston witnessed an event that changed the course of two communities
In August 2005 to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Canso Causeway, railroad enthusiast Martin Boston of Blues Mills shared his account of riding on the final rail ferry to cross the Strait of Canso on May 14, 1955. Boston died in 2017. POINT TUPPER — Although he didn't realize it at the time, Martin Boston was witness to an event that changed the course of two communities.
A rail enthusiast all his life, Boston began working for Canadian National Railway in November 1956, as a student operator in Port Hawkesbury. He was a longtime employee of the railway, and after his retirement was an active volunteer at the Orangedale Railway Museum.
It was his longtime interest in rail that led Boston and his friend Danny MacDonnell to board the final passenger train out of Point Tupper on May, 14, 1955. After that date, the rail ferry service from Mulgrave to Point Tupper was discontinued due to the coming of the Canso Causeway. Boston, then 18, purchased the final ticket sold by Pat Meagher for the service.
"The shunter pushed the train onto the Scotia (ferry) for the last time," Boston said. "We wanted to be on the last one from Point Tupper. For us, it was a big event, it was a big thing, but I don't know when it struck me how dramatic an experience it was."
He recalled that Mulgrave was one of the only stations in North America where passenger trains backed in and out. As the voyage progressed and the train pulled out from that station, Boston recalls seeing people lining the route in tears.
"We backed out to Pirate Harbour and then they switched the line and you went up the hill out of Mulgrave — it was a steep grade to Cape Porcupine," he said. "I can remember going up there. There were so many people out in their yards, mothers and fathers and children, and the mothers were daubing their eyes with the edges of their aprons and things and everybody looked so somber.
"It was the end. That day I didn't realize it, but later I did. It dawned on me what this had been all about. It was the end of Point Tupper, it was the end of Mulgrave, but you didn't think of this at the time."
The train travelled to Monastery and, following a half-hour stop, they returned to Cape Breton, this time via the Canso Causeway.
"All that for a dollar," Boston said.
The first train had crossed the causeway April 18, 1955, he added, months before the span's official opening on Aug. 13.