Taras Grescoe 🚇

This year I pledged to ride every passenger train in Canada, from the White Pass & Yukon out of Carcross to The Ocean, calling at Halifax. I'm about 60% of the way there! But the research money is about to run out. A thread on how you can help me reach the end of steel 🧵🚆

"Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom." —E.F. Schumacher

It’s official: on Oct. 26, 2026, the world reached peak Nathan Fielder.

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The ride to Skagway may be the most stunning scenery of any train I've taken on this continent.

Here's the last southbound train of the season, rolling into Carcross, #Yukon. Just six of us got on. A mother grizzly was wandering the village, so the stationmaster lent me bear spray. This week’s High Speed dispatch, on riding the White Pass & Yukon: highspeed.blog/last-train-out-of-carcross/

This is one of the most spectacular train rides in North America. I was one of the only passengers on the last train of the year out of Carcross on the White Pass & #Yukon Route. Why does this isolated route exist (and continue to thrive)? Full story here -> www.highspeed.blog/last-train-o...

This is one of the most spectacular train rides in North America. I was one of the only passengers on the last train of the year out of Carcross on the White Pass & #Yukon Route. Why does this isolated route exist (and continue to thrive)? Full story here -> www.highspeed.blog/last-train-o...

Alto is now targeted by people in Toronto + English Canada, who see it as too Québécois (HQ in #Montréal , francophone executives), and the Parti Québécois, who see it as a non-Québécois conspiracy imposed by Ottawa and English Canada. It’s neither. It’s just a smart idea, one whose time has come.

Constant supply of passengers from massive cruise ships. It’s an excursion train; only a tiny fraction of passengers use it to get from A to B

US executives quit as Trump turns control over massive Alaska energy project to Putin underlings. The former chief executive of a $25bn US gas export venture says Russian energy giant Novatek was given control of the project by Trump, triggering a mass resignation of company leadership

No joke, I saw the Shuffle Demons perform that song at the 1986 World's Fair in Vancouver when I was 15. I thought they were great and bought their record!

We shouldn't be surprised bike lanes are being torn out in Toronto. That city's most famous rock band, Rush, has an (awesome) song set in a future where cars are banned. The protagonist is so obsessed with driving, he borrows his uncle's secret sports car for an illegal joy ride. @taras-grescoe.com

"The 26-year-old Tesla driver from San Francisco stopped and cooperated with police, providing dash cam footage CHP said. 'The driver stated the vehicle was being operated in Full Self-Driving (FSD) autonomous mode at the time of the crash,' CHP said..." www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

So here's my ask: if 100 readers become paid subscribers to my newsletter, High Speed, I figure I can get to the end of steel. Details here 👇 www.highspeed.blog/i-need-your-...

Still ahead: the Tshiuetin to Schefferville, Via Rail's train from Winnipeg to Churchill, the Algoma Central out of Sault Ste. Marie, and more. But my book advance barely covers two months of living expenses. And this is an awfully big country…

Why do it? I'm writing a book for House of Anansi, tentatively subtitled "Twelve Trains that Explain Canada." The more I ride, the more I see how railways shaped this country: its frontiers, its art, its character, and lately, the survival of remote First Nations communities.

You can still ride the railway in Stompin’ Tom Connors’ classic song Algoma Central 69! I took the Agawa Canyon Tour Train north out of the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario), and man, was it a gorgeous ride. Full story here: www.highspeed.blog/an-autumn-ri...

You can still ride the railway in Stompin’ Tom Connors’ classic song Algoma Central 69! I took the Agawa Canyon Tour Train north out of the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario), and man, was it a gorgeous ride. Full story here: www.highspeed.blog/an-autumn-ri...

Congrats, Paris! Hyperscale is beyond timely. Can’t wait to read it.

New Green Party #Vancouver mayor Pete Fry has just 2K followers on Bluesky. Let's boost that number! bsky.app/profile/ptfr...

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS HATE THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK Ken Sim is pushing fossil gas infrastructure under a false narrative thst it will make housing more affordable. 📖 Vancouver Council report from November 2024 for the truth about electric vs gas and affordability council.vancouver.ca/20241126/doc...

More background on Pete Fry's punk rock roots in Terminal City. thetyee.ca/News/2026/04...

This is new listening to CBC radio at 6am every morning where I've barely woken up and there's somehow already been 4 car crashes across the region And they're just like "yeah you probably shouldn't go that way"

"I don't know how to drive a car. Never learned" "Why?" "Well, I don't like them. They're dangerous." Norm Macdonald, (hilarious) foot soldier in the War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOdM...

HOT TAKE: Let’s stop spending 100s of millions of dollars to hold referendums to break up a country the vast majority of Canadians love. Our forests are burning, we live among the unhoused, and the superpower to the south is talking annexation (again). There are better ways to spend our money.

Huge follow-up reporting to my scoop: The Guardian confirmed America Next—the conservative nonprofit founded by Bobby Jindal that was offering students $ to disrupt El-Sayed events—paid a firm registered to Tommy Teepell’s dad Timmy $250k for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed.

SCOOP: 'Tommy' from the now-viral exchange with Abdul El-Sayed is Thomas Teepell, a former staffer for Republican Senator Josh Hawley with close ties to Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht. He's the son of a former Bobby Jindal staffer whose consultant work was instrumental in getting Hawley elected.

A good day for Canadian democracy! The bots weren’t able to convince enough Albertans to betray Canada for oil money. And our 3rd largest city elected the nation’s first Green Party mayor. #Vancouver #Alberta www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

"I don't know how to drive a car. Never learned" "Why?" "Well, I don't like them. They're dangerous." Norm Macdonald, (hilarious) foot soldier in the War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOdM...

“I may add here that one of the secrets of my happy life is that I have never made the mistake of learning to drive a car." —Iris Murdoch.

¡No pasarán! Keep #Toronto ‘s bike lane network intact.

Correction on my pronunciation of “Agawa.” I say AH - GAH - WAH in the video—wince!—but people in Northern #Ontario say AG (rhymes with bag) - a - WAH. Like you’re saying “Ottawa”…