Train Thoughts
Recently I got back into watching train videos. There's something mesmerizing about them. I could be on the couch, reading a book, glancing at my phone, staring out at the park across the street; I'd hear the constant thrumming of the train rolling along the track.
I enjoy the variety of route videos. Depending on my mood, I could go from following the craggy mountains along the Colorado portion of the Arkansas river to the valleys of the Swiss Alps in autumn. The best are the ones with the least effort put into them, no music or clever editing, just raw PoV footage.
I'll switch on a video and allow myself to escape into the screen.
I grew up near tracks and spent many nights lying awake listening to their procession outside my window. When I was younger I was obsessed with a graffiti covered grain elevator across the field from my house, a place where I was told that trains stopped to pick up their cargo. I never saw this occur, but I did see the elevator's red lights glowing at night, blinking through my room's thin curtains.
I first discovered the train video community (if one could call it that) after moving back in with my parents. I had just finished college and couldn't find work in the city. With no money and an ever approaching feeling of all encompassing dread, I moved my stuff back into the childhood bedroom my parents had filled with junk in my absence.
What was supposed to be a few weeks turned into months into a year and a half. I could not move forward. Something stopped me. I got a job in town and worked the evening shift at the grocery store.
I could not fall asleep in silence, the stillness of my parent's house always unnerved me. So at night I'd fill my room with gentle light and sound, staying awake in bed until my body gave in to sleep.
I watched videos of commuter trains in cities I'd never visit, cargo traveling across indistinct grassy landscape. I found pleasure in these journeys, imagining myself as someone else, like I'd done as a teenager. I was only beginning to grapple with the contours of what was happening to me and I did not like it. I preferred the pleasant numbness of the train videos.
The night became the best part of my life. I'd get home from my job at midnight, select a video, and fall asleep to the images of a country gently rolling by.
Eventually the fan in my laptop burnt out and it overheated. I couldn't afford to replace it on my minimum wage job. At night I'd now lie in the dark, uncomfortable with the new quiet.
Eventually I left the town with the grocery store and the blinking grain elevator. I bought a new laptop. Life progressed.
The habit returned during my recovery from bottom surgery. Spending much of my time relegated to the house, I needed something to fill up the empty space and it felt comforting.
On a rainy afternoon, my wife joined me on the couch. We wordlessly watched the images on the screen, a passenger train making its way through a snowy mountainous landscape, putting off our tasks for the day by another hour.
At 3 A.M. I briefly woke up. Looking out the window at the blur of the street lamps, a few minutes later I hear the sound of a train going by. I close my eyes and fall back asleep. *