Watch them rolling on by
One hour later, my interest hadn’t flagged. A full hour of watching rolling stock enter sidings, pushed by drab locomotives. In another country, no less. Based on such evidence, I have the trainspotter disease.
My mother can attest to my standing in the window, watching the night express on its way to the boat. Hey, we lived right beside the track, in a house with one channel TV, and I couldn’t read. What else was there to do? And so, night after night I waved to total strangers; behaviour that would not be allowed in these troubled times. It didn’t matter, I was a railroad child.
But how can I explain, fifty-odd years later, that I’d willingly live beside the right of way. Noise bedamned! The risk of a train jumping into my living room would be a calculated risk. Instead, I live safely. Watching videos. Reading magazines that feature shots of rolling stock enter sidings. Over and over again.
I don’t think about transport trucks in the same way. Too small. Too prone to taking the next corner and disappearing. Trains, on the other hand, have calculated existence. Schedules. Rules. Numbers that mean something. And size. When a machine goes by, the ground should shake beneath my feet.
The chance to watch Irish rolling stock, this afternoon, was much more interesting than watching football. Yes, the players are big, but not big enough. Give me a train to somewhere, anywhere. Let me ride along, if you so will. Or let me stand in awe, as the blink of FRED disappears around a curve, with the horn announcing to others that the train is en route.
