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the urban naturalist

12. Train

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Trains are holy. Majestic, other worldly. I think it is because somewhere in the national consciousness for Americans there is this faint memory of what rail travel once was, before it vanished, become impractical except for hobbyists and dreamers.

There are so many great songs about trains, I'm certain that when I die a train will take me to heaven. Cat Stevens had his "Peace train" -- and the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin had the Festival Express. But before all of those hippy trains there was this train, that the Impressions sang about in their 1964 hit song People get ready:

People get ready, there's a train comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
You don't need no ticket you just thank the lord

That's the train to the afterlife folks. But, if you're not ready for that train yet, maybe you'd just like to go home. A train can always take you back.

He's leaving
(Leaving)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leaving on a midnight train)
Yeah, said he's going back to find
(Going back to find)
A simpler place and time
(Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's gonna be right by his side)
I'm gonna be with him

Or maybe you're trying to get home to Chattanooga. (For some reason)

You leave the Pennsylvania Station 'bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham an' eggs in Carolina

When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

Still, trains tend towards the mysterious. Think of the children's book: The Polar Express. A train pulls up on a suburban street and whisks a little boy away for an adventure. It's not the journey to the North Pole that is miraculous in this story as much as it is the idea of a working railroad in a suburb. When my father was little you could catch the "dinky" train on tracks just a few blocks from his house to downtown Pittsburgh. Buried in snow it was a real winter wonderland. Trains are something like mythical creatures that we tell out children about-- not a serious form a transportation. Well, not for most people anyway.

If there is anything to look forward to in a resource scare carbon sensitive world it is the return of the trains. And I hope I get to see them before I have to catch that final ride.

Transportation:

1. Plane
2. Bus
3. Foot
4. Train

Last: 11. The Wounded City
Next: 16. Share

These little snapshots of transportation are part of a larger series called "The Urban Naturalist."