Once upon a time, railroads were the icon of modernity, the ultimate gadget. Gawkers, curiosity seekers, boys chasing the caboose, cheering crowds. Now made obsolete by the virtual subatomic dematerializer for mass transportation, a vintage railroad can still quiet and calm and infuse my reflections with wonder.
© d051219-080 Railroad
Crisp County, Georgia
Monday 19 December 2005
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Rain-gage
Gas-gage
Mort-gage
© 060605-052 Railroad
Ravencliff, West Virginia
Wyoming County
Monday 5 June 2006
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Heavy rail collides with the chords of modern mass communication. Coded messages ripple at the speed of light. Where's the disco ball. Already my position on the earth has been targeted to within a third of a foot, or less. Is there a threshold of safety. I edge closer. My follicles tingle. Recalling the rapture experienced before the gilded statue of Goddess Athena in the Parthenon nearly twenty five hundred years ago.
© r0081-16 Railroad Truss
Nashville, Tennessee
Saturday 25 May 1985
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Hear the steam. The whistle blows. Anxious mothers pass fresh donuts and coffee to husbands and sons boarding the train, called to war. Feel the history, a grand hotel and depot from the 1870's now on the National Register. This, by gosh, is a railroad town. After a long day in the saddle managing maps and focusing three-sixty, high and low, Stevenson is a backroads desert, my cherry cheesecake.
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Stevenson, Alabama
Jackson County
Friday 7 December 2007
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I loved to walk the tracks as a kid each time striving to reach further than before, looking for new stuff. Always wondering how things worked and fit together: the sweet scented honeysuckle draped over a bob wire fence; an old house crumbling under its own weight; tadpoles wiggling in a stagnant pool. On the return I'd stop by a muddy creek, recover my hidden hook and line, and stalk catfish, or sometimes sun perch, but mostly skillpots fatally attracted by anything disgusting I could find for bait. As a kid railroads meant adventure, excitement, grit, noise, and chaos. Fortunately, some things never change.
© r0296-25 Railroad with Depot
Eagle Rock, Virginia
Botetourt County, Virginia
Friday 9 June 1989
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Near Carrollton, West Virginia, a splendid barn-red covered bridge spans the Buckhannon River flowing to the right to confluence with the Tygart Valley River about a mile downstream, thence due north to the Cheat, to the Monongahela, to the Ohio and beyond. That lofty horizon, however, does not lessen the resolve needed here to simply reach the other side. It deserves post card status.
© d070529-057 Covered Bridge
Barbour County, West Virginia
Tuesday 29 May 2007
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Wikipedia: The Little Red Caboose is a children's book by Marian Potter illustrated by Tibor Gergely first published in 1953. It tells the story of a caboose who longs to be as popular as the steam engine leading the train and who ultimately gains respect and admiration by saving the train from rolling backward down a mountain.
Flowers: This is the same self-effacing Caboose I admired and emulated as a yearling in the 1950s. Clearly, however, the story and its lessons need a major revision and upgrade to reflect our contemporary culture. Maybe a video game, too. It troubles my imagination to comprehend the transformation of this steadfast, tame but heroic, unheralded Little Caboose into one of XBox's raging steroid-pumped anti-heroes.
© r0096-03 Red Caboose
Marlinton, West Virginia
Pocahontas County
Saturday 1 June 1985
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Every day something new. Here's The General, mounted and properly gussied. But not on public display. Simply answer the temptation and reap the rewards from following the lesser path.
© d060323-021 The General
Stone Mountain Park
DeKalb County, Georgia
Thursday 23 March 2006
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The Blue Ridge Parkway always serves up an extravagant experience even on a wet gray day in November. Passing thru sleet mixed snow at higher elevations I drift cautiously downhill and pause for a moment of meditation at the Roanoke River and N&W Railroad bridge. The Parkway is calm on a Tuesday in late November with opportunities to linger - without sensing time - to absorb a natural mood browned by early winter, frosted with silver light. Cool, cool.
My gaze follows the railroad as it bends out sight flowing easterly thru a narrow passage. Daydreaming... Presently I hear the rumble.
In the late 1800's one of the richest high-quality bituminous coal reserves was discovered in southwest Virginia at Pocahontas. By then wooden ships were a thing of the past replaced by steel and powered with coal fired boilers. Mile upon endless mile of coal cars moved along these tracks for decades, rolling east across Virginia to the Hampton Roads terminal at Norfolk. Rumbling nonstop. Fueling the world's navies. The tiny village of Big Lick becomes a railroad town swelling with prosperity, destined to outgrow its back woodsy name.
Title: © N&W Railroad. r1102-28
Series: Railroads
Location: Blue Ridge Parkway
Mile 114.8 at Roanoke River
Roanoke County, Virginia
Date: Tuesday 23 November 1999
Wabi-Sabi. It's the Japanese aesthetic emphasizing the beauty of things modest and humble. A quiet restrained contentment with simple things especially those touched by the common hand. A love of roughness that masks hidden beauty. Spontaneity and ambiguity. Unostentatious gentle affection for the imperfect. Beauty stems from age and patina and the accretion of character.
The old boxcar is for my cup of ceremonial tea. Filling me with warmth and gratitude for this Wabi-Sabi opportunity.
Title: © Rusty Boxcar. r1389.34
Series: Railroads
Location: Sr 67, Tazewell County Va.
Date: Friday 3 June 2005
