1,000 Word Excerpt (From Romance of the Railroad)
I walked the remaining half block to the station, which appeared quiet and vacant at that hour. Climbing a low embankment beside the tracks, I discovered that one person, presumably the stationmaster, was on duty in a little lighted office in the nearer end of the building. I merely sensed his presence as I passed the open door of his cubicle, having no clear sense of what he was doing. I went into the waiting room, which was empty (as might have been expected). A wall clock illuminating an old soft drink ad on its face, a water cooler, and an archaic vending machine offered the only evidence that the waiting room was still in use. There was a ticket window at one end, which was closed, and the usual high-backed wooden benches typical of old -fashioned train stations. A heavy brass padlock hung from the street door, as if to keep people in rather than out.
Not only was the waiting room devoid of passengers, greeters, or welcoming parties (any who appeared would doubtless have been welcomed), but it was also devoid of any notice regarding train arrivals or departures. Passenger service had likely ceased here altogether years before.
I went out on the station platform and sat on one of the benches. It was worn and greatly weathered; in several places, someone, with evidently a lot of time for the task, had deeply carved his initials and made other whittling marks. Further signs of neglect or long disuse were also apparent. The rails next to the station were rusty and appeared not to have been polished by contact with the wheels of a train for a long time. Grass grew in the track beds of the three or four rows of track running parallel under the flat, projecting roof of the depot.
I sat pondering the lonesome and somewhat drab surroundings for ten or fifteen minutes. The early evening air was not unpleasant, however, and not conducive to a prolonged mood of nostalgia. Occasionally I heard the friendly, reassuring sounds of a switch engine in the distance. (Maybe it was only an echo, or a dream, or a recording). Toward the east end of the yards two green signal lights were visible, one on each side of the tracks. Next to the stationmasters office stood an empty baggage wagon. A hand truck lay parallel to the tracks on the island opposite, as if in readiness to unload freight from an incoming train.
It did not look as though any trains would be coming that night or anytime soon. The one I saw earlier was, in all likelihood, the last one of the day. I wished that a train would come then, a long fast freight that would suddenly roar through the small town and awaken it from the sad, fretful daze that had crept over everyone and everything connected with the railroad.
Growing tired of sitting, I paced the platform for a while, peering intently down the tracks in both directions. The depot with its touching and hopeless little reminders of the past seemed to convey a kind of wistful longing. It was as if the town of Hardin was waiting for a lover who would never return. Perhaps he had grown old or had died in some faraway adventure. It was then that I thought of how differently railroads had once been perceived. Pocahontas and Powhatan Arrow, names I had seen on the train arrival and departure board at Bluefield, might be some of the last surviving mementoes of a transportation age that was as almost completely vanished as that of steamboats.
The romance of the railroad, I thought, like many a romance, is often felt most keenly in its passing. The railroads did not simply serve transportation needs; they were part of the nations up building. The men who built and who served them were empire builders and giants who not only crossed mountains but also moved them. I could now more clearly understand and even sympathize with the feelings of the hangers-on at the hotel and the boarding house, who possibly were not only mourning the loss of a livelihood. In the course of these thoughts or musings, I heard someone behind me on the platform. It was the stationmaster, who stopped to check a couple of switches before going to the other end of the station. He didnt speak; I paid him only scant attention in return.
In a little while my wish to see a train arrive came true. The light of a locomotive was approaching slowly from the east. It was a freight train, but anything other than fast or roaring. The engine, except for being painted green, resembled the ones I had seen at Bluefield as it labored and inched its way southward along a curving outer track to the accompaniment of thunderous jolting and disjointed creaking sounds. It was totally different from what I had hoped to see. This train consisted of six or seven gondola cars loaded with cordwood and maybe a dozen or so box cars freighted with little other than the last rose of the day. It was going nowhere and in no hurry.
|