Trains.
Picture from The Rest Is Noise.
Ever since I was very young, I have loved trains and railway tracks. Especially railway tracks. As a toddler, if my grandmother and I came to a set of railway tracks on one of our excursions together, I would get off of my tricycle, kneel down before the tracks, touch them reverently. And then I would take my grandmother's hand in mine and make her touch the track as well. "Come feel, Nana. Smoooooooth!"
Later, we had a house in Winnipeg that was near multiple sets of tracks, where engines would shunt cars from one place to another in preparation for their cargo and ultimate destination. I would often race along the trains on my bicycle, enthralled by the display of beauty, iron and noise. When I was in university, a couple of friends and I journeyed along those same tracks on foot one evening, watching for the telltale headlight of an oncoming locomotive appearing on the western horizon as we set forth in the opposite direction, following the tracks as the turned northward and headed into the heart of the city, the lights of the downtown buildings serving as a kind of beacon. At one point we found ourselves hanging from a metal wire fence as we made our way along the outside railing of a railway bridge, traffic whizzing by below us, the possibility of a sudden, messy death serving to add an extra dash of spice to what we were doing. Foolish? Yes. Dangerous? Most definitely. But it was so thrilling, seeing the risk and foolhardiness of what we were doing and deliberately seeking it out.
Winnipeg Train Yard. Photo by webpirate77.
Even now, trains and tracks hold a special thrill, with a pull that is almost magnetic. It's the potential that they hold, the idea that, if you just step off the road and follow them, even for a little while, an adventure awaits you just around the next bend, a promised treasure of potential. On those rare moments when I do walk railway tracks, I inevitably feel as though I've crossed some kind of mystical boundary and ventured into another world.
Battle River Trestle. Photo by A guy with A camera.
I think I need to find me some railway tracks again, see where they take me. Maybe this is my mid-life crisis: the urge to try and re-live past experiences in the hope feeling the same thrills. Cheaper than the Ferrari and trophy wife, I suppose. Anybody else up for an adventure?