Train

There are train tracks near my house. Actually there are a number of train tracks near my house but the ones I am referring to are the ones I cross about four blocks from here. There aren’t any lights or a gate that comes down where the tracks cross the road. There is a RR sign but that is it. I never thought too much about this because I thought the tracks weren’t in use anymore.

That is until about a year or so ago when I was driving home and looked to my left as I crossed the tracks and right there, on the tracks by the side of the road was a HUGE locomotive. At least it looked HUGE to me since it was only about 10 feet from my vehicle. It was just sitting there, engine idling and lights on, and didn’t appear to be wanting to go anywhere.

It was a bit disconcerting to me since, as I said, there aren’t any lights or a gate at the crossing and this HUGE locomotive would have flattened my van if it decided to cross the road. Obviously it didn’t, since I am still here, but it was a bit nerve wracking to look at it.

This happened one other time this past year but that time the HUGE locomotive was on the other side of the road and it was during the day. Somehow it seemed a little less scary during the day than it did at night. Still intimidating but not as scary.

Tonight, as I was driving home, I heard a train and looked up and saw one approaching the road as I was crossing the tracks. This train was definitely moving. I turned around in a driveway a little ways away and went back to see what the train was going to do.

As it approached the road, someone jumped off the train, walked into the road and was waving a flashlight to stop the traffic. The locomotive (or I should say HUGE locomotive) blew it’s horn twice and then proceeded to cross the road. It was pulling four cars behind it but there wasn’t any caboose.

Side note: Actually I don’t think they use cabooses anymore since they have a sensor thingy on the last car of a train that gives it all the information that a caboose used to give.

I watched the train cross the road and then it occurred to me that if I went up about three more blocks, I could watch it cross the road again. As I turned up a side street, someone else had the same idea and he passed me and went speeding up the road to watch the train as well.  We both reached the next major intersection and, a few seconds later, there was the train. The person jumped off the step of the locomotive and, waving his flashlight, stopped traffic for the train. The HUGE locomotive blew it’s horn twice and then crossed the road. Oh, I forgot to mention, as the train crosses the road, the person with the flashlight steps back onto the locomotive so he can jump off at the next road crossing.

I thought about speeding up another three blocks to watch it cross the next major road but then decided that the novelty had kind of worn thin and went home instead.

I wonder where the train ended up? I wonder how often a train does use those tracks? I mean, I hear train whistles all the time but I have always assumed that they were from the Downeaster train that runs up and down between Boston and Portland several times a day. The train station for that is only about a mile or so from my house. But maybe some of those whistles are from the train tracks that I thought were abandoned.

I do feel a little more comfortable about those tracks now that I see how they move trains along them. It makes me feel better knowing that they are going slowly and that there is someone to stop traffic before the train crosses the road. I feel slightly less intimidated. But only slightly because those locomotives are really HUGE!!