For as long as I can remember I have always loved trains. What is it that I love about trains? Trains are strong. They seem to have a purpose that is single-minded. Focused. Linear.  Powerful and unstoppable. Moving towards a goal. Determinately moving toward that point B is at the end of the track.  Sometimes I will cross a solitary rail and I will look down the railroad tracks as far as the eye can see. It’s like looking off into the future. When I was a young kid and the cares of the world were not muddling my mind, I would like walking along the railroad tracks. 

There is a certain peace and calm, a sort of comforting solitude to trains and walking the tracks. Walking silently along the railroad tracks is sort of like meditation. I love how railroad tracks seem to traverse and dissect the topology of the land and neighborhoods. There are certain things that you only see when you walk along the railroad tracks.  Like little glimpses into the backside of society. Different backyards of homes. Land.  Open spaces.  Animals in a field. This is also true when riding on a train.

The first train that I can ever remember riding was with my father. We didn’t exactly ride it in a conventional way. We did something that would probably be considered child endangerment in the current world. We saw slow-moving train and we ran and jumped on it.   We rode it a ways down the track and before it picked up much speed we jumped off.  Fun.  Yes.  Dangerous.  Yes.  But I will give my father a pass on his recklessness because I really loved trains and the memory of that experience is enduring.

As an adult I have ridden on a few trains. Primarily Amtrak passenger trains going up and down the East Coast from North Carolina to Virginia. From Virginia to DC. From Virginia to New York and back. I enjoyed the people that you see and meet on a train. I enjoy looking out the big picture glass windows where you can see highways and cars, roads, farmland, quick glances of people in neighborhoods, cities, and little towns. 

It’s amazing that train travel isn’t as popular as it used to be.  This is probably due to the popularity of the airplane. Traversing long distances in a plane is common and microwave quick for efficiency in comparison to a long distance trip on a train. As a matter of fact it is so common and so quick to fly that most people take it for granted. I sometimes think about people who lived in the 1800s and early 1900s that I used to read about. Something like traveling from East Coast and West Coast could take months or longer by horseback or wagon.

The family who wanted to make the journey from the East Coast to the West Coast took a lot of risks.  It was a good chance that everyone that was with you when you started the journey would not be there at the end of the journey. But traveling by train would make the journey from coast-to-coast take as little as a week or two, at least from my understanding of travel back then. I still have a dream to possibly take a train from coast-to-coast which in modern times would take about 2 1/2 to 3 days depending on the train.