"The lady leaning against the tree in this painting gave me the idea of recreating this scene on canvas. Her father had been a conductor on one of the trains that passed through her grandparents' village of Ayr in southwestern Ontario.

Whenever she and her sister would hear the train whistle, they would dash to the station to wave to their father. I decided to include her in the picture looking wistfully at the scene of her childhood. I painted the train passing through at sundown which proved to be uncannily correct. She recalled how she used to squint her eyes against the setting sun to catch a glimpse of her father's waving hand in the distance."

- James Lumbers