CHAPTER FOUR: 
     
    
   
   
    
     7.5 m. 
     
    
   
   
    
     s a young girl, Kathleen Keefe used to sit at the window of 
     
    

    
     her family’s farmhouse and watch the trains travel between 
     
    

    
     Emerald Junction and Borden. The house was so close to the 
     
     railway tracks that it shook as the trains passed through Kinkora. This 
     
     was the one rail line that carried all passengers and freight on and off 
     
     Prince Edward Island. It was a busy stretch of rail line, and the station at 
     
     Kinkora was a beehive of activity. From there, passengers would embark 
     
     and disembark, potatoes and other freight would be loaded, mail would 
     
     be dispatched and delivered and incoming supplies from the mainland 
     
     would be dropped off for shipment to neighbouring communities and 
     
     local businesses. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The railway, which threaded its way throughout Island communities, 
     
     was interwoven into the fabric of Island life. It was not only a means of 
     
     transportation, it also established a pattern for Islanders themselves who 
     
     would adjust the tempo of their lives to the arrivals and departures of the 
     
     train. The train whistle was a signature note in the pastoral symphony 
     
    

    
     of the Island countryside. School children memorized the sequence of 
     
     stations. Special trains were put on to shuttle mourners from funerals to 
     
     graveyards and to carry hockey teams and their high spirited supporters 
     
     to games from one end of the Island to another. Excursion trains 
     
     conveyed people and brass bands and fiddlers to tea parties and country 
     
     fairs. Newly weds boarded trains which whisked them away on their 
     
     honeymoon, which for many was their first time away from home. And, 
     
     as thousands of Islanders left in search of a better life on the Prairies or in 
     
    
   
   
    
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