Riding the train has explained a lot, in terms of Canadian Communications Theory. Thinking specifically of both Innis and McLuhan, and the Bias of Communication specifically.
Innis would have been speaking of the age of rail, but also the era of the fur trade, that ran in conjunction with that, though rarely overlapping. Rail during that era would have been the symbol of big industry, as was shipping obviously, though the Age of Sail was in the rear-view at that point, with the Age of Steam coming into its own.
Then the Shift happens, a shift without direction, though one is often implied as the charts of history put time on the Y axis. Rarely we may get something of a vertical orientation, either up or down, and almost never moving right to left.
(Might have to try that one sometime.)
Anyhoo, the Shift, as McLuhan is talking about, takes place in an era of air travel and electrical communications. (Innis too, but bear with me for a moment). The primary mode (of both transpo and comms) has changed, and while the old one still exists, and maybe even in a greater volume, the way we think about the world has changed as well.
The new and old continue exist in parallel lines, mirroring each other down vast stretches of the countryside. Part of this is simply due to convenience: once one route is carved, it’s easier to lay down the another next to it. Path Dependency. And the ground shapes it (well, maybe not in Saskatchewan) too; the land speaks through the topography. The paths may be laid down following valleys and gulleys and “paths of least resistance”, or “desire paths” as they are coming to be known.
This is described by Tung-Hui Hu in their book “A Prehistory of the Cloud“, how the paths of the telegraph wires from East to West followed the lines of the railroad, obviously, and how those followed the paths of the Pony Express. So the donkeys noses led the way, and we’re still using those paths all these years later.
Even in Saskatchewan.