My Hobby

Have you ever lain awake on a cold, snowy night, covered with a thick blanket in a warm bed when it's so quiet you can hear the snowflakes hitting the window panes? Almost every time I found myself in this cozy, comfortable position, I heard a train whistle somewhere in the distance. To most people, this whistle would be background noise and hardly if at all noticed. But to me, it stirs my blood. It's like the call of a lone wolf howling far away, calling me to come run with it. That train came from somewhere distant and is going somewhere else. Someone is driving that train, out there in the snow, bringing freight or passengers to the place they need to be.

I have a very romantic notion of railroading. I know it's hard, dirty, dangerous work; but, there's a mystery to it. I mostly think of freight trains, the least romantic things most people can think of. What's in those cars being pulled by those hulking, noisy, powerful engines? Sometimes it's obvious. For instance, you can tell a coal train pulling 100 cars, that's 1 mile long, of black gondolas heaping full of black coal from Wyoming to power stations throughout the United States. Other trains are car after car loaded with containers that will later be transferred onto trucks for delivery wherever they're going. But what I love the most are the "mixed freight" trains. The trains that have box cars, flat cars, tank cars, gondolas and other specialty cars mixed together in varying lengths. Those are the trains I wonder most about.

... to be continued