Wow, this sucks!
Did I tell you we live beside the train tracks? We do! Not THESE ones in particular and in our case, there is a city street and a chain link buffer, but we're pretty much nestled against a multi-ton steel torpedo. Good times.
I used to think living beside the tracks would be annoying. Just hearing the words conjures up thoughts of rattling dishware and consistently misaligned art on the walls. I used to know someone who rented an beautiful apartment beside train tracks. He said it actually never bothered him. He told me he imagined the sound was the ocean.
When I was a kid, there used to be train service that went through my hometown. It's long gone now, but I have memories of lying in bed and hearing the train whistling in the distance, hearing the rumble of machinery over the tracks. It was very far away from where we lived - but you could still hear it.
I guess that's why I get a certain comfortable feeling when I hear that train go by. It just rumbles past gently. Most times I don't even notice but when I'm aware of it, I can feel the vibration.
In the morning, I get a ride in with my friend Mat from work. Sometimes when I am waiting outside, the train goes past. I watch it approaching, rolling busily toward the downtown core with it's cargo of passengers. As weird as it may sound, I like it. I think it's a unique thing to see from your front door. Maybe I will take a picture for you someday.
6 comments:
Me likey train, too.
I grew up in a single-industry, newsprint manufacturing town that is bisected by railroad tracks. The company locomotive hauls loaded boxcars out to the Ontario Northland Railway siding, and the ONR locomotives haul the paper to the customers, after dropping off empty boxcars to be refilled.
When I was a kid, the steam engine that is now a monument was occasionally hauled out of mothballs and used while the company's modern diesel was undergoing maintenance. What a treat to hear that old steam whistle.
Our cottage is a couple hundred yards away from ONR tracks, too. Like the call of the loon and the chattering chipmunk, one sound I associate with the cottage is the early morning train, as it whistles through the crossing. There's nothing like rolling over in the bunkbed and grabbing some more shuteye. Add to that, rain on the roof of the old part of the cottage -- which doesn't have a dropped ceiling that muffles out such sounds -- and you have the ultimate in peaceful cottage living.
It is a cool to hear. As long as it is not all day and night.
Once in a while is okay. Imagine living near a super speed train. Like Superman flying by your day everytime.
Keep smilin!
Trains going through Montmagny beware...if you read the article, you'll find that it's not the first time they derail there....I was up there this New Year's Eve with my boyfriend visiting his parents (who live literally 2 min walk from that spot) and he always likes to show me the bridge the train fell off of a few years back (which you can see in one of the pictures of the photo gallery). (or was it the bridge that broke? I forget). I don't know if it's the same incident as the one mentioned in the article, but quite frankly, trains in Montmagny don't seem to be particularly lucky...
But i too do love the sound of trains...as long as they stay on the track , of course.
Before we bought our duplex in NDG, we had gone to see another HUGE duplex on Bailey St, in CSL and this house had a backyard where a train would whizz by. I am NOT joking, literally train tracks in your back yard. While we were looking at the house, the train passed and shook everyone inside (1 of the 8 kids living there was almost knocked off his bunk bed).
I ran out of that house like a bat out of hell, there ain't no way I was going to be living next door to Mr. CN RAIL.
Hope everyone has a great week!
I loove the sound of a twain ..especially Shania .
I was born into, and grew up in, a house situated "three houses up from" railroad tracks which saw trains on them at 11am and 4pm every weekday. ("Three houses up from", or "three houses past" the railway tracks was the way we referred to our address before they numbered the houses on our street.) The train always blew its whistle when crossing our street, which never really bothered me. It meant they were looking out for children and being safe. I was rarely home at 11am for the morning train whistle, what with going to school, followed by work, but unless you were a big Oprah fan and clung to her every word, having the windows open to a blaring train whistle at 4 in the afternoon was really no big deal.
I also had many 'train pennies' in my youth, from knowing when the train was coming, and had a favourite spot on the tracks to load 'em where no one would see us. Squished pennies = Fun!
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