Thursday, July 16, 2020

A fine romance …

… Why I Love Trains | Peter Hitchens | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Why is it that I love, or used to love, trains so much? I thought about this often when I was effectively banned, by the virus, from my normal daily journey between Oxford and London, 63 miles each way. Even now, in bare modern trains systematically stripped of character and romance, there can be a glorious seclusion in a long-distance train that does not stop too much. The soft and distant landscape rolls by, and at any time I can look up and see a familiar hill, church, or stretch of woodland. I can name much of what I see, and have walked over a great deal of it, purposely seeking to know the land better.
I spent the first eight years of my life watching the trains go by across from where we lived in North Philadelphia. Though I turned four the year the war ended,  I can remember the troop trains. And yes, there is something wonderful — or the used to be — about a long train ride.
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4 comments:

  1. George7:14 PM

    My brother once spoke of being kept awake by hearing trains in Quantico, Virginia. Our father, who grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a railroad town, then told of hearing trains while in bivouac in France in 1944 or 1945, and feeling almost unbearable nostalgia.

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