Caption: With engineer Tom at the controls, the SMSU glides over the iconic THIS IS INDIAN LAND bridge over the Garden River. The message on the bridge has stood for decades upon decades, and is regularly touched up by members of the local native reserve. Interestingly, at one point in history, some "vandals" changed the message to say "this was indian land"... that was fixed quite quickly.
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As soon as I saw the photo and before I read the caption I was going to comment that I saw this writing on the bridge for the first time in 1974 and it was fading then. So it has been around at least 40 years. A single Buddcar was running over it back then. SOO to Sudbury.
Very nice to hear, I do wish the BUDDs were still running along the line, but at 25mph it’s a solid 7-8 hour trip! My great aunt talks about taking that trip from time to time, her and my grandma both live up in the Sault. One time she was driving with a friend in town, for whatever reason the friend decided to beat a crossing with a BUDD approaching. It came so close that she could see the engineer’s horrified face. It ended up clipping the back corner of the car and spinning them around on the road surface, but that was all thankfully. Who can’t wait for a single train car to pass??