It's a minute past five and my thirteenth hour on the road. I was looking out at the road rushing under my wheels and feeling every bit like Jackson Browne. With 900 kilometres on the odometer and less than an hour of sleep keeping me going, I was running on empty. I'm not one to pass up a good opportunity, though. And seeing Canadian National stack trains on the Ontario Northland is no exception. With the sun now setting, the deep, dark forests have cast long shadows over Quebec's frozen Rte 117. Around the bend rolls a trio of smartly matched Canadian National EMD SD75is, catching rays of increasingly low sunlight as they press on towards Rouyn-Noranda. With a lengthy stack train for Montreal, detour no. 130 is taking the 'scenic route', having already traversed CN's Newmarket Subdivision, ONR's Temagami, Ramore and Kirkland Lake Subdivision's to join back up with the Canadian National further down the line. These rare detours are a result of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation rail blockade in Belleville, Ontario. For a once-a-decade opportunity such as this, I didn't mind running on empty.
