Making Tracks

Our apartment/condo is across the street from a suburban/urban commuter train station. The track line is a main east/west corridor for Union Pacific Railroad trains. This may be the most busy rail line in the nation, or in the top five. Trains pass through 24/7. Long trains and frequent ones. Commuter trains, too, of course.

Maybe a quarter of a mile to the west of us is the main north/south rail line of the Canadian National Railway. This, too, is a very busy line. About 27 trains a day pass through on a 24/7 schedule. CN has owned this line for about 3 years. Initially traffic by the previous owner managed to send maybe 4 trains a day through the corridor, short trains, at that, and slow and lumbering.

CN’s traffic is fast and each train is nearly a mile long. Their plans are to pass 42 trains daily through the area and each train will approach 2 miles in length. With track improvements the traffic will likely move past the 42 train count.

The CN trains cross the Union Pacific tracks at grade. The clickety-clack from the crossing is very noticeable. Trains from all directions must await their right of way and so some of the traffic is left idling on sidings for their green light.

Needless to say, we know about train traffic. We have good windows and doors that blank out much of the noise, but some trains blast horns as needed, especially when nearing a commuter station with a train at the depot.

Train horns, rail rumble, swish of steel against steel, and clickety-clack. 24/7. All kinds of weather. Cold air makes the sound more intimate and immediate. Warm weather muffles the sound. Either way we live with railroad hubbub and have come to blend it in with the other noise of life. I rather enjoy the constancy and regularity of the trains. It is comforting to know that someone, at least, is doing something and supporting economic activity!

Back in the early 1960’s I attended college in a west central town in Illinois. Galesburg, Illinois, Knox College to be factual. Galesburg was a major railroad town: Santa Fe, and Burlington Northern railroads. Each had their own corridor and routes passing through town. In those days Galesburg was a junction point that could support trains stuck in blizzards on the plains and eastern Rockies. A small fleet of steam engines were maintained even then just for that service need. They could pass through drifts easier than the diesel-electric locomotives.

So, throughout my college years (1961-1965) we were treated to railroad sounds 24/7. Walking for exercise and entertainment on the weekends, many students would pass over track beds. Often just before or after a train had passed through.  Staring down the tracks wondering where they went, we could also imagine our own travel back to home. Mine was in New York and I was 1000 miles from family. Sometimes I felt lonely. Oftentimes I felt marooned with studies, academic challenges and tasks of growing up and knowing more about myself.

Imagination and flights thereof fueled ‘trips’ to home and new, exciting places. I knew then it was a form of escape. But that image comes back to me now, 50-plus years later and conjures the same imaginings.

Where to? All aboard! What’s the next stop?

At my age there are still journeys to be made and enjoyed. Or at least hoped for!

Clickety-clack calls me to other places, at least for a moment.

How about you?

October 29, 2014