Trains! They are awesome. It would be so fun to ride a luxury train across country and relax. Trains fascinate me and have for most of my life. Ok, you know I am going to give a movie reference so I may as well get on with it, right?
Last night I watched a special movie called ‘The Christmas Train’. So many dynamics in that movie including the story line being about two writers who find each other after years apart. They had been a couple years before but went their separate ways. After winding up on the train at the same time, place, unbeknowst to either of them, this provided for some tension.
However, this blog is not about the plot of the story so much as it is about trains and the nostagia, memories, mystery they bring out. My step-grandfather had worked for the railroad back east which gave me a little history on trains. Sadly he had to retire due to an accident with a train, yet he always loved the trains in spite of it.
As a little girl my family lived in a town in North Carolina called Henderson. We lived a bit outside of the town in a tiny place, Kittrell. Yes very tiny with only one country store at the time. Our house was right beside the church my dad pastored. I think this is where my real love for trains took root. Our house was located no more than 150 yards from a major set of railroad tracks. So close in fact that every time a train passed the house rattled, not just the windows.
We lived there four years and I don’t believe my parents ever got used to the sound of the train whistle. You see, there was a railroad crossing right behind the church. Oh yes, many sleepless nights for the adults. It gave us kids lots of opportunity to use our creativity to make up ghost stories about ghosts walking the rails. I will leave the rest to your imagination.
That is the only time we lived in proximity to train tracks to the best of my recollection including my adult life in North Carolina. But in Oregon, I lived for a while very close to them and at night especially I would open a window to hear the sound of the night train whistle and see the light of the engine. I was entranced. Trains have a mystique about them that is not easy to describe.
To wrap this up, there are other movies about trains, ‘The Polar Express’ (love it) as well as ‘The Christmas Train’. A line I heard several times was that it is not about the beginning or the destination, but it is all about the journey. And such is life…. like a train. You get on board and ride the train of life until you reach your destination. Let me encourage you to enjoy the journey with the stops along the way, the folks you encounter, the derailings at times but look out the windows and enjoy the ride on ‘The Christmas Train’.
See you at the next stop….
