Trains don't come here I think. I grew up where there were a lot of trains both freight and passenger. I love to hear them in the distance....not just the whistles but the soft sound of their movement that you can hear and feel at 3AM. That is one of the few things that I've missed since I left my hometown. My daughter is partitioning a one-bedroom apartment away from the rest of one of her rental houses that is located not far from her house. That will be mine so I'll be visiting up there more with my own place. She started this project almost a year ago but got side-railed but she is back on it now. From that apartment I will again hear the 3am go by on the tracks about 1.5 miles away. Nice.
It makes me feel nostalgic. I think of Peter, Paul and Mary singing, "If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone. You can hear the whistle blow 100 miles." One of my mother's favorite songs. She died when I was 15.
Train-hopping was very popular when I was a kid. I believe it was the Southern Pacific that used to pass by the houses across the street from us. One of my friends lost his leg when he mis-calculated his jump. He was lucky a leg was all he lost. A boyfriend of mine committed suicide on the same tracks just a year later. Still, the sound of a train on a quiet night, after living so many years near the tracks in my old beautiful town, is one of my most favorite sounds.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at October 28, 2018 10:42 PM MDT
When I was 12 going to school I would lay in bed at night hearing the train whistle, it make me daydream about far away places. I often heard of people jumping on the freight cars to catch a ride to a big city like New York. ..which sounded very exciting to me;)