I was going to call this post Planes, Trains and Automobiles (yeah that movie!) but then I decided I had enough to say about just trains to fill one post and that my thoughts on planes and automobiles would have to wait for another time. I also love the line in "Raining in Baltimore" which is the title of this post. Sometimes I feel like I can always hear a freight train too. I have an interesting relationship with trains because I don't actually like trains that much but I adore everything surrounding them. I definitely prefer travelling by planes or cars. (I don't mind/actually kind of like subways and commuter trains. When I was still in high school I used to prefer buses to subways because being underground kind of freaked me out. But once I left high school I started much preferring subways. They are faster, I can read on them, and they don't get slowed down by traffic, etc.) I don't normally get motion sickness but I find the motions of trains, the slight tilting or rocking side to side, sometimes gives me a headache or makes me feel a bit nauseous. Train tracks, however, and train whistles, I absolutely love.
One of my favourite things about Berkeley (along with the hills and November full moons) were the train whistles. I could always especially hear them at night. Maybe because there were less cars out and so less background noise? Or maybe because more trains went by at nighttime? I'd hear them sometimes in the daytime too but it was always more special at night. I have so many very happy memories of sitting at my kitchen table in my lovely Hilgard apt and hearing the train whistles. I must have heard them before 2005, but all my memories surrounding hearing them come from my last year there. To this day, whenever I hear a train whistle, I always think about Berkeley and that year I lived on Hilgard. I mentioned to K. once, sometime after we'd both left Berkeley, how much I loved the train whistles there. She told me that during our second year when she lived in that house on Oregon St. and slept in the little sun room turned bedroom off the kitchen that she could hear the train whistles really well and also loved it.
I got to indulge my love of train tracks, but not whistles, in Paris. Near my fabulous apartment on rue des Batignolles were some wonderful train tracks. Paris has a really good commuter train system with an extensive network of tracks and trains taking people to and from Paris and the surrounding suburbs. I got well acquainted with these trains while living in Paris because I needed to take one of them in to Paris that first week I got there when staying in Meudon with my family friends. I loved that train because it was a short ride into Paris and you could see the Eiffel Tower for part of the ride. I also had to take commuter trains out to the airport when I was assigned to teach English to Air France employees. These trains were great because they functioned much like subways except above ground and didn't have any of that tilting that I don't like. Anyway, at the end of rue des Batignolles is a lovely little park called Square des Batignolles. It has a little pond, some nice paths, a playground and lots of greenery. On the far side of the park, there is a big long fence and on the other side of the fence, a steep drop to some commuter train tracks. I used to love going to that park and standing by the fence watching the trains go by below. I also used to walk over a bridge located above those same train tracks on a regular basis and I'd love stopping sometimes to watch the trains go by, or just to stare at the tracks. (See the picture of the tracks below.) When I first discovered that there were train tracks so close to me in Paris it felt like fate, and further convinced me how much I belonged in the 17th arrondissement.
Another amazing train track/whistle experience I've had took place in Marathon, Texas - this little speck of a town in the vast and magical West Texas desert. I've been to Marathon twice - once in May 2008 with S. en route to Los Angeles, and once in June 2009 with J. after we left Big Bend National Park. Ever since I first heard the song "We Danced Anyway" by Deana Carter when I was 16 I always loved the line "Well they say you can't go back, baby I don't believe that" because it's true that people do always say you can't go back. But Deana is right (!) since three times in my life I have gone back and going back has been perfect: 1. the two times I went to Marathon 2. Going back to Paris and living at 45 rue des Batignolles again in June-July 2008 and 3. returning to Berkeley for the 2005-2006 year after spending the first 7 months of 2005 in Santiago.
But back to Marathon, it is very beautiful there. The sky is so blue and bright during the day, and so so full of stars at night. It is also the most beautiful rich blue at sunset. Both times I stayed at the Marathon Motel which is located at the edge of Marathon and basically right in the desert. All the rooms are little cabins and when you step outside the cabin, you are confronted with the desert. The first time in May 2008 when S. and I were there, I was awoken in the middle of the night by long, loud and clear train whistles. Instead of wishing it would stop so I could go back to sleep, I lay there smiling and thinking about Berkeley and its train whistles and about how much I already liked West Texas. S. and I had arrived in Marathon in early evening and left early the next morning so we didn't get to enjoy the town much. J. and I arrived in the afternoon. In daytime, Marathon was awash with light, in brightness, the hot West Texas sun beamed down on our shoulders, our heads, the backs of our knees, our summer dresses, as we walked along the train tracks that scorching hot June day. It seems the trains there mostly go through at night and so in the afternoon we had the tracks to ourselves, to walk along and to explore. That night, I was awoken by the whistles again, and again I lay in bed smiling, so happy to be back in the vast desert with the night train and its whistles to keep me company.
Toronto also has some really cool train tracks. There are some good ones downtown, running along the lake. They go right by all these big tall condos and if I'd lived in one of those, I'd love to look out my window and watch the trains go by. There are also the Dupont train tracks which cross over Avenue Road just above Dupont and which run behind Dupont St. and a few other streets in that area. Some friends of my parents used to live right on Dupont and said that the trains running basically through their backyard were noisy and annoying. I know I wouldn't think so though, and would actually love to live super close to train tracks like that. Hopefully one day I'll eventually get to.
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