The Falls guy

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA

When you travel by train you get to peer over the back fences of places, literally into backyards and rear windows. You see people at work or not; great economic activity or waste and neglect. This not a new observation by me, nor by anyone else, but it was brought once more to the top of my mind by my journey to Niagara Falls.

One thing you must do if you’re in Toronto, and you have the time and the intent, is go look at the water flowing under the bridge – and if you’re a train freak like me that’s how you get there. It’s two hours on VIA Rail Train 97 out of Union Station, except that it’s really Amtrak Train 64 on its way to the Big Apple. VIA maintains the pretence until they change crews at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and those not going to Godzone are tipped on to the station platform with the instruction that if you want a bus or a taxi, they’re right through there, folks.

Niagara Falls is one of the world’s top tourist attractions, right? I’d assumed that the train would be met by a barrage of spruikers wanting to show me all the sights. Nope, not a one. OK, October is out of season, I get that . . . but nothing? Just a rack of pamphlets in an unstaffed waiting room, located in a landscape of boarded-up buildings and spaces where buildings once stood. I suppose few people go to the Falls by train, and I should have guessed this by the complete lack of VIA promotion, not even an overpriced day tour package.

I wandered across the street, deserted except for a well populated taxi rank, past the boarded-up Hotel Europa (left), to the bus station cum de facto tourist office. How do I get to the actual Falls? Well, you buy one of these bus passes, said the couldn’t-care-less custodian behind the security glass of the ticket office, but it’s cash only. I have no cash, only a card. Taxi! The driver knew the drill and within a few minutes he deposited me without fuss at the Falls.

But I’m not done with the city of Niagara Falls. Bear with me – it is a tale of gobsmacking bathos.

Right now, I’m at the Falls – the famous tumbling, rushing masses of water, white and green like the ice-cream sodas I used to enjoy as a boy. There can’t be many people in the world with access to a TV screen who have not seen these famous walls of water. I would guess most everybody is impressed, certainly when you’re there on the brink of the escarpment staring down into the swirling abyss. Indeed, who couldn’t be impressed? It was certainly worth the VIA indifference. Take it: I was impressed.

After the initial oo-ah, I looked around. Up on the hill behind me were a barrage of hotels and other glass menageries, plus a casino and an observation tower. Over there, beyond the maelstrom and looming through the mist directly in front of me, was the US, also complete with hotels and other tourist traps furnishing America’s honeymoon heaven. (P.G. Wodehouse named one of his female characters Niagara because that’s where her parents had their honeymoon and, by implication, consummated their connubial bliss – which is the closest you’ll get to actual sex in Wodehouse World.)

Dominating everything Over There, despite it being miles away, stands a huge blue and white edifice with a giant video screen on top flashing its wares: SENECA, CASINO. Then something else I could hardly believe, AIR SUPPLY. Surely it can’t mean . . . ? Yes it does. Who would have thought this Australian band which produced a raft of global hit songs in the 1970s was still going around? It is though, and there with the name on top of this Niagara Falls monstrosity is a picture of, presumably, the principals, Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock. I suppose that, if the Rolling Stones can escape Jurassic Park, so can Graham Russell Hitchcock.

After a few more minutes admiring one of the world’s great unnatural wonders, it was time to check out the gift shop – vast, of course, and filled with stuff. Maybe a little keepsake? Nope.

Back out to the cliff-top promenade. I began to appreciate the fact it was the off-season and a bit cold and showery. Movement was unimpeded by the non-crowd as I strolled along, stopping to snap the odd pic and feeling quite pleased with myself that I was on the Canadian side where things seemed to be a little restrained compared with the gorilla in the mist. It was a little early but lunch was calling at a big, tasteful looking restaurant with a big verandah overlooking the Falls. The view was indeed delightful and I was positioned back out of the constant spray. The food was as I’ve come to expect in North America – fairly ordinary – and the local pinot noir tasted more of cough syrup than raspberries. Oh well, there are always the Falls.

Outside again, the skies had opened up so I sought refuge in a café, acquired a plastic cup of some mongrel local red poured out of a magnum bottle – the Canadian equivalent of the Aussie wine cask – and showed off my pretentiousness by tapping out some of this piece on my computer until the rain cleared. It was barely past 1pm by then and I really wanted to hie off back to Toronto but my train wasn’t until 5.45 – and this where the story really begins.

I strolled a little further, pondering whether I should unleash my inner Portillo and take a boat trip to the foot of the falls, or maybe a zipline ride from the top of the cliff to the bottom. Ziplines are what we used to call flying foxes and look way too heart-straining for fat old men. So I pushed Portillo back into his scarlet trousers and outrageous jacket and strolled on in the lightish rain to Clifton Hill. O Canada.

Not exactly restrained, this garish collection of neon, other flashing lights and clanging pandemonium is what might be termed an amusement area. Bad taste? Think Surfers Paradise circa 1966. It was 2 o’clock or thereabouts. I was wet and miserable by then. Might as well head to the station, sit for three hours or so. Do the Globe and Mail cryptic crossword and mope a little. Taxi! Ah, no. Not until I’d limped up and down for a while (did I mention I have sore feet after a week in London?).

I told the cabbie my intention was to wait at the station. He was sceptical. Won’t be open. And of course it wasn’t. If there are only two trains a day why would it be? All right, I’ll take a hobble around the town of Niagara Falls. See what’s what. It can’t be all as bleak as this area around the station.

Well, it could and it was. Apart from me, a couple who got out of a car and fellow standing under the eaves of a building, the place was devoid of human occupancy. Someone, though, had passed along there quite recently. The smell of marijuana hung heavy in the air. At 3pm or so on a Friday afternoon, Queen Street in front of the city hall was deserted (apart from the figure on the sidewalk in my picture, which I’ve just noticed). City Hall itself betrayed no sign of life. What shops and other business premises that were not boarded up were not open. A desultory motor vehicle swept down the road but I was in no danger from failing to remember to look left first, instead of right. It was neat and clean though, which it would be, wouldn’t it, with no one there to disturb its civic order,

I wandered back to the station to inspect the tracks, as I am wont to do. Weeds sprouting between the rails and splintered sleepers (ties, in this part of the world) showed why Niagara Falls station never featured in Portillo’s great train rides of America. However, the station did have a brand new bike shed – empty of course and showing no sign of ever having been used – and a dunny for working dogs (right). This artefact for future archaeologists to marvel over was well signed in English, French and Braille, ordering that dog doo-doo be picked up and dropped in the bin. How thoughtful. Except grumpy old me wondered how a blind person, despite his or her dog, would ever know it was there. Just a feeling I suppose.

This just about exhausted the possibilities of the station. The seats outside, being uncovered, unlike the bike shed, were wet from the rain, so I couldn’t sit there. The bus station was the only place and there I took block with my crossword in a burst of warm afternoon sunshine, while all manner of human life passed through and road coaches came and went – except, it seemed, for one from New York which failed to turn up and left its Niagara Falls passengers stranded. I don’t know what happened to them.

Eventually it was time to cross back to the station. Miraculously, in this little-trafficked town, taxis were lined up ready for the arrival of the train from New York. So was the security crew. I, and everybody else, was barred from the platform because Niagara Falls was this train’s first stop in Canada and all its passengers had to pass through Canadian border controls, which meant everyone had to debark (see, I can do Americanese) with their luggage, submit to the armed men in black and then join me in the waiting room until told they could climb back on board (and I mean climb because the platform, like most in North America, was at ground level).

I then had two hours on VIA Rail Train 98 to Toronto to ponder what my day meant. Twenty-four hours later I’m still not sure. The Falls were great, of course – Clifton Hill notwithstanding. But the journey from Toronto to Niagara Falls was not the scenic delight along the shores of Lake Ontario that I had anticipated. Apart from the last half-hour, say, it took a path through endless industrial and housing estates, with amazingly tall apartment blocks, some 30-40 storeys high. Good to see an economy alive and well. The Amtrak train rolled along OK and the staff were helpful. But these old coaches, standard in the US north-east, have seen better days, and the track was bumpy, naturally enough: freight trains don’t carry loads that want to stand up and walk through the carriages to the loo or the snack bar. Loos don’t need to stink either and their doors need to stay shut.

But if I hadn’t taken the train I’d never have seen the extent of industry and population around Toronto along Lake Ontario. I’d never have discovered Niagara Falls the ghost town, as opposed to Niagara Falls the tourist resort. I have done something few tourists from afar have done. I take solace in that, albeit in a darkish kind of way.

Somewhere there’s a lesson from the day, maybe about the decline of long distance passenger railways, maybe about modern Canada. I’m not presumptuous enough to go down the latter path. I know very little about modern Canada, or old Canada for that matter, although I hope with my upcoming five days on The Canadian to Vancouver I’m about to learn some more. I do know about trains, however, and the wreck of Amtrak continues to be a great shame. VIA Rail couldn’t be any worse. Could it?

PS: Niagara Falls is not to be confused with Niagara-on-the-Lake, of which I have become aware only post-Falls. It is apparently as attractive a little spot at the mouth of the Niagara River, north of the Falls, as you could desire. I wish that I’d gone there instead of Clifton Hill.