One of the few things I found charming about Bakersfield when we moved here (and by "few" I mean "only") were the trains. They crosshatch the town everywhere you look. Oh sure, they could be a pain in the ass if you got stuck behind one at a crossing since they are usually miles long and tend to move glacially when they block major arteries. But on quiet sleepless nights there's been something comforting about the moanful wail of the horns.
I was a train geek from an early age; I can't remember a time from childhood when I didn't have one. When I was about 12 my father determined that I was old enough and responsible enough to move up, or down as the case may be, to N gauge. N gauge was very small and very expensive and it was a responsibility I took very seriously. Truth be told my father was just as into it as I was and the resulting tableau was the size of a pool table. As an added bonus, my father was a physics professor and an engineering whiz and the track layout he created was as complex as a celtic knot. There were dozens of switches which he wired into a control panel that looked like it was out of the Starship Enterprise. Unfortunately, the planned alpine village never materialized. By the time I'd accumulated the necessary chalets and fake pine trees, foam mountains and plastic cows, I was a freshman in high school and on to other pursuits. I think my father still has a soft spot for it. While my parents wasted no time unloading my stuff when I left for college, much to my dismay, I can't help but notice the old train set is still up in the garage rafters.
My first apartment after I graduated from college was in South Pasadena. The Amtrak right of way passed at the base of the hill, and every night at 8:30 the Southwest Chief pulled out of Downtown LA on it's way to Chicago. I used to time my nightly walk for smokes and booze so I could stand by the track and watch it pass.
My love of trains has endured all these years.
Until last Friday.
That was when a freight train derailed across the street from my office.
While it was always great fun causing derailments as a kid, it's an entirely different matter with real trains a few feet away. Luckily the train wasn't moving that fast and no one was hurt, but I've seen trains whiz past here going 80. The local news assured everyone it was no big deal, happens all the time. If that was meant to be calming, it didn't work. Because the most frightening thing wasn't the sight of derailed boxcars, but the fact that they came within feet of one of these Death Star black, unmarked tanker cars...
They are everywhere here, parked on every side spur, linked up for miles, shooting through crossings at freeway speeds. What's in them? Who knows. I doubt seriously the crack staff at Bako City Hall has a clue. But odds are with all the oil companies and refineries around here, it probably something flammable or explosive. Or worse.
So I don't look on the trains with any sense of wonder and romance anymore, instead seeing them now as rolling agents of death. This city has already crushed my hopes and dreams; now it seems to be going after my memories too.
