The Romance of the Rails

I remember growing up in my hometown with the sound and sight of freight trains passing from one side of my backyard to the other.  My family lived right near a major railroad crossing, which means that as a child I learned from very early on the folly of trying to "beat the train" whenever it got to the crossing.  Those accidents were often the subject of much rubbernecking from the safety of my backyard.  

Other than those not-too-rare occasions, I really loved watching the trains go from north-to-south and south-to-north alongside IH-35.  My childhood home was on the train track side of the highway, the one that connected Canada to Mexico via the USA.  The railroad also connected in much the same way all the cities that stretched from north to south, delivering automobiles, grain, coal, lumber and other commodities to major cities.  I recall the boxcars from the B.&O., Southern-Pacific and other railroad companies that for some reason have not yet crumbled into dust despite the use of trucks and airplanes in commercial transport.

The one type of train that I wished to travel on more than anything were the Amtrak trains that would meet from north-south and east-west in San Antonio, Texas.  Their gleaming cars tempted me so much but stayed well outside of my lower middle class reach.  It wasn't until the early 80's--when I was an adult rejected by the USMC as being unusable for the lockstep military mindset--before I rode my very first train.  Though I got to Parris Island by airplane, I was told I had to leave by bus.  I didn't even get a chance to cash my check of one month's military pay, which included the time I spent in "casual company"--the holding pen for all Marine Corps rejects.

The DI of the women's casual company tried to talk me out of my desire to travel home on the train.  I know she was being practical about my saving as much of my military severance pay, but after one month in the bowels of hell--complete with SOS at the mess hall--I felt I deserved something I had never done before that was actually fun.  So  after the one bus ride I had to take, I ended up in Atlanta, GA with an uncashed military paycheck, a hotel room all to myself and the desire to find one place where they could allow me to actually pay for the room I was inhabiting.  So I found there was a bus that would take me to Fort Gillam, and I went to the PX hoping for someone to take the check from Uncle Sam and turn it into currency.  The banks wouldn't touch it, so this was my only chance to not make a bad name for myself in that strange and gleaming diamond of the South.

After about five minutes of haggling--which involved my explaining why I didn't have a military ID and why a check from the US Treasury was worth cashing even though I was a discredited and discharged Woman Marine wannabe standing in an Army PX--I got my money and went to the nearby liquor store to get a six-pack of Molson's (I was a big SCTV fan and had never tried Molson beer).  With my "wealth", I got into a cab and went back to my fancy room at the Sheraton.  I stayed up watching Ted Turner's version of MTV (much cooler videos, BTW) and hoping that I could drink all that beer without choking on my own sick.  I had a couple of bottles left over when I finally checked out, paid cash for my room and went to the Amtrak station.  It was there that I realized my luck in getting to Atlanta instead of another city because the only train back home left from where I was.  So I chose to take that train which would connect with the Sunset LImited at a stopover in New Orleans.  I didn't know where I would stay in the Big Easy, but ran into a single mom with her four-year old daughter (raised in a "sugar-free" environment) who was happy to share a two-bed hotel room after we chatted in the train station.  I forget where on Bourbon Street I dined, but I had one hell of a plate of Jambalaya while she went with her daughter to The Blue Angel, dwarf maitre'd and all that jazz.  

The next day, we went walking around the French Quarter, having a breakfast of beignets and coffee at the Cafe du Mond.  We sauntered around, and I think I actually caught the eye of an artist in Jackson Square.  There were so many merchants selling fruit, veggies, bread and cheese that we stocked up for the train ride west.  That was how we saved money by not eating in the dining car--though in subsequent train trips I would partake in the sumptuous fare of the capable staff of the dining car.  I don't know how things turned out for my temporary traveling companions, but I for one fell in love with the train as a reasonable means of transportation.  

One last memory of my first train ride: seeing the rural backyards of the South, including the shores of the Mississippi River.  While I sat writing down my thoughts, there was a man sitting alone reading some book or magazine.  Though I thought in my romantic imagination that he was interested in me, I was rapt in thought while jotting down thoughts and making crude sketches in my notebook.  I guess that was one of my lost opportunities for love on a train, but that was just something that I equated with one of my most favorite movies of the 1980's, Continental Divide starring John Belushi and Blair Brown.  To me, trains and romance go together, though for some reason I have not yet had that opportunity to make love in a sleeping car.

Maybe I'll have to wait until my daughter grows up for that to transpire.  But I would gladly refuse to be in the Mile High Club for one chance to roll with the man of my dreams along with the rhythm of the rails as our background music.  I will always think of this as my ultimate romantic fantasy, and that is only part of my flirtation with the legacy of the mighty iron horse.

©2008 Cynth McGarvie-Bage