I was in Springfield, Illinois, on Saturday night, at the home of my friends Doug Kamholz and Sheila Walk. I’ve known them for years through Switchback and also enjoyed their participation on the Mr. Marty Show.
Waking up about 2 a.m., I heard the far-off sound of a freight train rolling through town. It will be sound that in the near future will not be heard in Springfield, as all rail freight traffic will move to one track on the periphery of the downtown. And, I can imagine some residents will rejoice, while there will be those who over time, may grow nostalgic for the sound.
Not all freight trains sound alike. Some have deeper horns, some a bit more strident and others very melodic. The number of blasts on the horn depends on the crossings. Too young to be alive for the sound of those steam engine whistles, the freight train horn is what I grew up with. That far off and lonesome sound. I’ve never lived too far away from hearing a train whistle in my adult life and as I get older, I grow fonder of hearing a freight train out somewhere beyond.
Living in Chicago not even a half block from the Union Pacific line of the Chicago Metra commuter train, I do sometimes get a bit irritated at the sound of the horn on those engines. They are shrill and all business. A commuter train is a different creature, something that sounds so different from a rhythmic rolling freight. And the speed of the wheels also gives a commuter train a very different feel from the powerful moving snake of a heavily ladened, as an ocean wave on a beach. It was nice to lie in my bed there in Springfield and listen to the whole fifteen-minute symphony as the train made its way from one crossing to another heading south toward St. Louis. It is a moving, morose metal monster searching and calling out in the night. I can hear its call, a plaintive “where, where, where are you?” In time that sound grows more urgent and demanding, a lost soul of steel wheels rolling on rails, each joined just right to create a “clacking” noise that adds to the cacophony of sound, its call even more urgent. “Wheeeeeere, Wheeeeeeere, Wheeeeeeere Areeeeeee Youuuu?”
I can envision this lonesome monster, reaching out and moving by as it writhes in pain and sadness. And I can’t help but feel some sadness, as if my life itself is rolling by. My life rolls by, calling “where are you” in a search for meaning. All too soon, that sound, echoing off the buildings and woodlands starts to fade further away, searching, searching, searching in vain. Finally, all that is left is a brief interlude of wheels on rails, a slithering tail of a great beast on a doomed quest. The wheels slowly fade until silence settles back in. And as I settle back into the pillow, the last sad call far in the distance: “Where are you, where are you, wheeeeere, where are you?”
READ MARTIN’S OTHER STORY HERE.