My fascination with Trains
I like to feel that I am a person well versed on our culture with a great deal of interests. this is to further my goal of being a multifaceted person with a host of talents. Despite this aspiration, I must give credit where it is due, to passions that as far as my life are concerned have been a part of it for a majority of my time on this planet.
Trains have been an obsession of mine since day one basically. In my infancy, my parents lived in a small apartment in Glenview, Illinois that stood next to train tracks that serviced freight trains for Union Pacific.
As an infant, my parents likely feared that the noise from the trains would scare their infant son, but that could not have been further from what occurred. Instead, hilarity ensued as the little infant smiled and giggled as the trains would go by shaking the apartment.
This love of trains did not vanish as i became a toddler and an older child. Such was my love of railroads that my grandparents used train rides as bonding experiences with me. My dad and I would regularly make train trips into Chicago. Indeed, at times I feel like it was more than fate that such a lover of trains happened to have been born in the United States Capital of Railroads.
That fascination does not end today. Now as a resident of Orlando, I was active in the push for the Sunrail to become a reality and rode the trains multiple times in its opening month as well as ensuring myself a chance to ride the trains on the very first day of opening and become a part of a new legacy in the city.
Since Sunrail has opened, I have ensured that at least once a week I ride the train if for no other reason than as a means of a joyride, though usually, I ride the train from Maitland near my house into downtown Orlando where I make use of the public library and art exhibits to ensure that I keep cranking out quality writing for my readers.
Into the future, I aspire to ride Amtrak around the United States, for that is a journey that I have yet to undertake. In fact I have yet to even ride Amtrak, but it is certainly on my to do list.
Trains have clearly had a large impact on my life, for my obsession with maps and possibly my wanderlust itself have been born from it. Perhaps the largest legacy of railroads to me though is the fact that trains play an active role in my novels.
Part two of The End of Utopia features trains as a form of transportation and in fact almost an entire chapters worth of writing takes place in the cabin of one.
I continue to ride the rails for they make me happy just by being in their presence, and hopefully they do m ore for you than anger you as you drive for your morning commute.