TRAIN LINES - Stop and Ax

TRAIN LINES - Stop and Ax
                                                                                                      KENNETH E. HALL      SEPTEMBER 4, 2018     HOUSTON, TX

To figure it out now, it's about as insane
As those who throw axes at runaway trains!

I guess I've always loved trains. There is just something about steel wheels on steel rails, the rumble and the roar, and the traveling to someplace far away that makes that form of transportation appeal to me. In observing trains I learned a few things over the years. Much of what I learned was just common sense. For instance, I learned early on, to STOP at railroad crossings if the bell was clanging, the red lights were flashing, and / or the gates were lowered - or in the process of lowering. I learned that, right or wrong, a car that matches might with an oncoming train will always lose - and will lose BIG!

One night I went to pick my wife up at work. It was a short distance, but the avenue I needed to take to get there intersected with an industrial line that served a plethora of refineries and petrochemical plants to the south of us. So it wasn't a main line, in that sense, and trains did not hit high speeds because there were so many crossings to deal with, and most importantly, they carried a great quantity of liquid hazardous materials.

On the night in question I approached the intersection. I was running late. Usually whenever I'm running late, it's just that time of the day for the train to rumble by. But today was different. I got through the crossing just fine, and as I passes the tracks, I looked and  I saw the light of the oncoming train only a few blocks away. My wife had to work a few minutes late, so I sat in the parking lot, and got in some train spotting at the same time. 

I noticed that the train was across the avenue now, and was stopped for some reason, blocking it. Next thing I knew, police and fire trucks converged on the scene. 

     

A local priest, Father Tom, a very nice man indeed, had, for some unknown reason run through the still-blinking lights and ran into the tank cars of the freight train. This could have gone south so very fast, given the tracks closely paralleled several gas and chemical pipelines, but Father Tom was only dazed by the incident, and although HazMat teams were called, the tanks were not damaged and we didn't have to evacuate! Guess Father Tom had connections. Can't say as his car fared as well.

                                                                          

Now about the ax... I read the attached article and strangely sympathized with the ax-man. Trains are a great form of transportation. But they can also be annoying, especially when they block your path and you are in a hurry.

Trains have an uncanny knack for coming to a crossing at the very worst times. 

One day, I was in a hurry - been know to happen. On this day, I was particularly stressed, and sure enough, the bells started clanging and the lights began to flash. Down came the arms right in front of me... I had just arrived a few seconds too late, and decided "discretion was the better part of valor," and decided to wait it out.

The train that was coming was no local yokel - this was a big boy - three large diesel monsters were pulling a line of cars that disappeared into the distance. I was already behind time, and it seems I would be later still for whatever it was I was late for. 

The locomotives charged through the crossing -  horns blaring loudly - and smokestacks belching black smoke, their mighty engines throbbing in a low sound that echoed deep down into your chest! That mass of metal was moving quickly, like some mighty juggernaut - some Engine Engine Number Nine speeding down Chicago line - or maybe like American Pie's "last train for the coast." Wherever it was headed, it was making great time. I sat there transfixed as the cars one-by-one squeaked, rattled, and groaned by - and chuckled as every once in a while, a railcar with a "flat tire" would come bump-bump-bumping down the tracks.

Since there was nothing I could do about my situation, I enjoyed the show. I began counting the freight cars as a way of lowering my stress. There I sat, counting away: "forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven..." - I got so engrossed in counting that for a few seconds, I was actually growing calmer. I looked down that very long line of boxcars and tank cars, but this time I could see that there was, at long last, an END to it all. I hoped that I would soon see the very last car clatter pass, and be on my merry way.

Then it happened: there came a series of booms - a staccato of them growing louder and louder - boom! boom! boom! boom! In rapid succession.

The train was starting to slow down - and the couplings were taking up the space in between as it began slowing.

What??? SLOWING?!?!? Oh, NO!!! My "frustration meter" began rising.

What was worse was that this hot freight train actually seemed to be STOPPING!!

"Oh, no you DON'T, " I shouted to no-one in particular as I saw the train, all NINETY-SEVEN CARS, come to a complete stop ...just before the very last two cars would have  cleared the intersection!!! So close!

Just when I thought things could get no worse, they did.... The doggone train began to REVERSE!!

If I had missed anything on any of the freight cars or tank cars - a logo, a number, a piece of graffiti, a smudge - anything at all - I got a chance to see it again as the now "slow boat to China" began chugging away, pushing its heavy load not onward, but backward. 

[Here is where the AX comes in.]

Along with me there were several people trapped at that intersection - none of us had the option to go anywhere. We were stuck, so we sat there watching as that train went back and forth a few times, only to stop each time when it ALMOST cleared the crossing. 
Did that engineer ever realize or CARE if the LONG LINE of cars contained folks that might just have places to go, too? Could he not have cleared the intersection for a minute to allow them to pass?

Freight train, freight train going so fast,

I'm sitting and waiting till you go past;

Please don't stop! Just carry on,

So I'm not here all day long.

Eventually, the train did finally stop its back-and-forth, and  I got to where I was going, better late than never. The world kept turning, the cars and the trains kept on rolling, and I am glad I wasn't the man with the ax! 

Oh, yes, him.... Many of us have also wanted to throw things at trains, whose operators could care a fig about anyone outside the confines of their tiny cabin. They spend their days and nights looking down at the rest of us like we weren't even humans. Unlike our ax-wielder, most of us, from time-to-time, have had the urge to do a little ax-throwing of our own. This would have been one of those times.

孔子说:

Confucius is reputed to have said: "It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence" 

This San Antonio, TX  man threw an ax at a moving train, and, in so-doing, received the blow of his own ax in return as it glanced off of the metal giant. 
He should've read Confucius!!

I watch how most people drive, and I realize that some old-fashion Karma just went down as I sat cooling my heels at that intersection: All those folks who waited frustrated as the train see-sawed up and down the tracks - those very people every day speed down those freeways and streets like bats out of Hell, and give no quarter to their fellow drivers. Those very people just met their match, and LOST. 

As for me, I  got to do a whole lot of serious train-watching! 

                                                   

Here is the article:

https://www.ksat.com/news/sa-man-throws-ax-at-moving-train-bounces-back-hitting-him-in-head-sapd-says


I have written another train story on my Blog: 
"Train Whistle Through the Mississippi Darkness":

http://kennyduke.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-train-whistle-through-mississippi.html

https://www.seton.com/reflective-traffic-signs-railroad-crossing-symbol