Our Experience Hiking Newfoundland's T’Railway Trail

Looking back after walking from St. John's to Port aux Basques on the T'Railway Trail.

 

Completing the Hike Across Newfoundland on the Trans Canada Trail

“The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between.”

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

When we first set out from the old railway station and museum in St. John's, the T’Railway Trail appeared to offer one of the more straightforward sections of the Trans Canada Trail. Following a former railway line across Newfoundland seemed, at least on paper, considerably simpler than navigating the steep climbs, rocky footpaths, and exposed coastline of the East Coast Trail that we completed last year. The route was relatively continuous, the railway gradients were manageable, and we had spent months identifying the communities, possible campsites, and resupply locations along the way. What we had not fully appreciated was how different walking nearly 900 kilometres of former railway could be from walking the recreational rail trails we had experienced elsewhere in Canada and Europe.

 
The greatest challenge was undoubtedly the surface beneath our feet. In places, particularly around St. John's and the more developed eastern communities, the trail was well maintained and covered in relatively fine gravel. Elsewhere, however, the former railway ballast consisted of large, sharp, uneven stones that shifted underfoot and made walking surprisingly exhausting. The railway's level gradients did little to compensate for the continuous strain of finding secure footing, particularly when carrying fully loaded backpacks or when wet. After several hours, even the flattest stretches could become uncomfortable, and on some days the trail surface affected our pace more than the distance or elevation.

 
This was especially apparent as we travelled farther into the interior. Beyond Badger and toward Millertown Junction, sections of the rail bed were rough enough that we found ourselves paying almost as much attention to the ground as to the landscape around us. This was rather frustrating given that the surrounding countryside was extraordinary. We passed through broad wetlands, stands of spruce and tamarack, open hills, and areas where dragonflies and butterflies accompanied us for kilometres. At Millertown Junction, we encountered the remains of concrete railway platforms slowly disappearing beneath the vegetation, a reminder that the remote corridor we were struggling along had once been part of a working transportation system. The railway's history was not confined to museums or interpretive signs; it remained visible in the landscape, sometimes in places where little else survived to indicate that trains and passengers had once passed through.

 
The T’Railway was also quite different from the dedicated walking trails we had previously followed. Much of the route was used by ATV riders, particularly near communities, cabins, and recreational areas. On some stretches we encountered very little traffic, while elsewhere the sound of approaching engines became a regular part of the day. We generally found that sharing the corridor required awareness rather than any real challenge (the drivers were all amazing), although motorized traffic inevitably changed the experience of travelling through otherwise quiet landscapes. It also made us more conscious that the T’Railway serves several purposes simultaneously: a recreational route, an access corridor for local residents, and a connection to cabins, hunting and fishing areas, and communities across Newfoundland. We were walking along a trail that was very much part of contemporary life on the island, rather than a route set aside exclusively for long-distance hikers.

 
Another discovery was that a railway corridor could be remarkably varied despite appearing so uniform on a map. East of Clarenville, the trail passed through extensive boreal forests and wetlands, with lakes and ponds appearing regularly beside the route. We found beautiful places to camp, including one beside Big Gull Lake where the calls of Common Loons carried across the water through the evening and into the following morning. In other places, however, the landscape offered few suitable camping opportunities despite appearing completely undeveloped. Low, wet ground, dense vegetation, rocky embankments, and the proximity of cabins sometimes made finding a reasonably level and dry place for our tent more complicated than expected. The same railway bed that made navigation relatively simple could also carry us for long distances through terrain where leaving the corridor was surprisingly difficult.

 

Water was generally plentiful throughout much of Newfoundland, although its presence did not always mean that it was convenient to reach or collect. We passed countless rivers, ponds, streams, and wetlands, sometimes walking beside water for hours, yet access could be obstructed by steep railway embankments, marshy shorelines, or dense vegetation. Rain added another dimension to the experience. During our first days beyond Holyrood, the weather shifted repeatedly between mist, heavy showers, and brief periods of sunshine, changing both the appearance of the landscape and the practicalities of hiking. Farther along the route, we encountered sections where water had accumulated on or beside the rail bed, and near the Codroy Valley we discovered that the trail was flooded so extensively by beaver activity that the trail had effectively disappeared beneath a substantial amount of water.

Although the T’Railway is one of the more continuous sections of the Trans Canada Trail, we also learned that continuity should not be mistaken for an uninterrupted walking route. Around Corner Brook, sections of the railway corridor were difficult or impossible to follow as an established trail, and we were forced onto roads, including a particularly unpleasant stretch along the busy Trans-Canada Highway between Steady Brook and Corner Brook. These interruptions were a marked contrast to the quieter inland and central portions of the trail, and reinforced the importance of checking actual conditions rather than assuming that a line shown on a map necessarily represents a continuous, maintained pathway. Even in Newfoundland, where so much of the historic railway remains available for recreational travel, the route occasionally demanded improvisation.
 
Yet for all its difficulties, the T’Railway also provided some of our most rewarding birdwatching experiences. The railway corridor created a narrow opening through extensive stands of balsam fir, black spruce, white spruce, and tamarack, allowing us to observe birds moving through the forest and feeding along its edges.

 
Yellow-rumped, Wilson's, Black-and-white, and Black-throated Green Warblers were among the species we enjoyed watching, along with White-throated Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Canada Jays. We regularly stopped to investigate an unfamiliar song, examine movement among the branches, or watch birds feeding in the shrubs beside the trail. Occasionally this enthusiasm had consequences, including an unfortunate reminder that watching birds through binoculars while walking over loose railway stone with a heavy backpack is not necessarily a good idea.

 
As we travelled west, the character of the landscape changed considerably. The forested corridor around Clarenville, Terra Nova, and Gander eventually gave way to the more open and isolated country of the Topsails, where the railway crossed a remarkable expanse of barrens, small lakes, wetlands, and rocky hills. Here the old rail bed seemed particularly extraordinary. Far from the populated eastern communities, it continued across the landscape as evidence of the determination and engineering required to connect Newfoundland by rail. We encountered wildlife, watched birds in habitats quite different from those along the eastern coast on the ECT, and experienced stretches where there was only a little indication of human settlement beyond the railway corridor itself. The Topsails were certainly among the most memorable parts of our crossing, although the combination of difficult footing, exposure, insects, and distance meant they were not always the easiest to enjoy while we were walking through them.
 
Beyond the interior, the railway gradually returned us to communities, forests, rivers, and eventually the agricultural landscapes and coastal environments of southwestern Newfoundland. Around the Codroy Valley, the opportunities for birdwatching became particularly rewarding, with warblers active among the spruce and tamarack, Spotted Sandpipers along waterways, and Common Loons on the lakes.

 
Near River Brook and South Branch, we found ourselves stopping repeatedly to watch birds feeding in the trees and shrubs beside the trail, sometimes making remarkably little progress despite having considerable distances left to walk. It was precisely the sort of experience we had hoped the #Hike4Birds on the Trans Canada Trail would provide: the chance to spend enough time in a landscape to notice what lived there, rather than simply passing through it.

 
Looking back, perhaps the most distinctive quality of the T’Railway was the way its historic purpose continued to shape our experience. The railway had been constructed to overcome Newfoundland's difficult geography by creating a dependable connection between distant communities. Walking its former route allowed us to appreciate those distances in a very different way. The long grades, cuttings, bridges, embankments, and abandoned station sites spoke to the engineering and labour required to establish the railway, while the surrounding forests, wetlands, and isolated settlements demonstrated why such a connection had once been so important. What had appeared on our maps as a relatively simple line across the province gradually became a succession of very different places, each with its own history, natural environments, and practical challenges.

 
We would certainly recommend exploring the T’Railway to anyone interested in Newfoundland's railway history, boreal landscapes, or the experience of travelling across the island at a slower pace. However, we would also encourage prospective long-distance hikers to approach it as something different from a conventional recreational rail trail. Its surface can be difficult, motorized vehicles share much of the corridor, and food, accommodation, and camping opportunities require planning, particularly through the more remote interior. The trail is not uniformly maintained, and conditions can change from one section to the next. Anyone undertaking an extended walk should be prepared to adjust their plans and verify current conditions rather than relying entirely on published distances or descriptions.

 
For us, the T’Railway became far more than the former railway corridor we had researched before leaving St. John's. It was a place where we learned the particular routines of walking the Trans Canada Trail, sometimes covering long distances in relative solitude and sometimes stopping repeatedly for birds, changing weather, or conversations with people we met along the way. There were beautiful stretches, frustrating stretches, surprisingly difficult stretches, and places we would gladly return to explore again. Taken together, they made the T’Railway one of the most distinctive long-distance trails we have walked, not because it was always easy or conventionally scenic, but because it provided such an unusual way to experience the geography, history, and natural life of Newfoundland.
 
For those interested in following our crossing in greater detail, our daily Newfoundland Trans Canada Trail journals document the changing trail conditions, communities, wildlife encounters, camping experiences, and practical realities of walking the T’Railway from St. John's to Port aux Basques.
 
See you on the trail!