Category: Writing About Rails
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A Hint Of Green: Southbound On Train #238
[Everything is ON TIME] Aboard the 12:10 train for Penn Station I check my watch as the train jolts into motion. It’s 12:09. There was a time when Mariam and I would make the trip from Manhattan to Rainbow Lake in one day. It was 305 miles from our apartment door on W. 93rd Street…
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Never Draw Straws On The N Train
[The Raft of the Medusa, painted by Theodore Gericault. (Source: Google search.)] This afternoon, my wife and I actually left Manhattan and made a trip to one of the boroughs. On purpose. We rode out to Astoria, Queens (where my wife grew up) to visit my son, Brian and his girlfriend, Kristin. We had a…
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Next Stop: Easy Street
“Well, this is where I get off, Baby Blue. I got a cozy little spread about a dozen miles out-of-town.” “This don’t look like no town to me, Buzz. The flies have taken over the ticket booth in the hole you say is the station.” “I’m not a man for big words, Blue, but I…
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Arriving, Departing or Just Passing Through
I stood hard against the tiled wall and made room for the rush of human traffic trying to pass me. I was thinking about insanity and the blindness of powerful people to hold sacred something that once had beauty and class. Beauty and class are rare commodities these days. I was in the bowels of…
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Going Down The River On A Winter Day
Aboard the Amtrak, Train #238. Bound for Penn Station, NYC I can’t sleep in this cramped seat. It’s 4A, the window with a view of the Hudson River. But there is no view. It’s white enough for sunglasses. I see West Point across the water, barely. I snap a photo with my iPad mini. It…
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At the End of the Train
Those who lived within earshot of the railroad would usually be put to sleep by the clacking of the iron wheels passing over the rail joints. It was an age-old rhythm, a song often without words. It drew the listeners away from their world. Where was the train bound? Where did it come from? Hank,…
patrickjegan 