Friday, May 01, 2009

Something about trains

A recent outing brought me face to face with many a train. I love them. There's a nostalgia, a romance, a je ne sais quoi about them. Our language is peppered with train-centric phrases. Our career might be derailed, your plans may be sidelined, or your life could be a train wreck. Which isn't always a disaster. I was on a train that wrecked. Literally. Somewhere between Springfield and Alton Illinois, the Amtrak I was on hit an abandoned car on the tracks. No one hurt, just a crunched car. Which begs the question, if your car just happened to run out of gas on the railroad tracks, why leave it there? What were you thinking? Insurance? Insanity. Accident not withstanding, I still find train travel to be special. Perhaps I'm just a hopeless romantic, or perhaps there's just something about trains.

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