Night Trains
Fishing on the Greenbrier River during my early teen years, I began to make my peace with the night. Soon I was listening intently to its voices, both real and imagined. An abandoned grade of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway followed the river, and my uncle told me how he used to hear the train rumbling along for half an hour. Sometimes, between casts, I would stand completely still and imagine that way down the valley, I could hear that train coming, too.
Nights on the Greenbrier weren’t just for fishing. Sometimes we would build a roaring fire at the cabin, sit in wooden rocking chairs, and tell stories long into the night. Later, I would learn the deep tradition of storytelling in Appalachia, often the only means for preserving family heritage. The art of those stories was in the telling and the retelling, and they took place almost exclusively at night. Part of the reason was mere practicality; there was no time for stories during the hard work of the day. But practicality was only part of it. The night shut out all other distractions, and in its void those stories could grow. For many families, it was bad luck to tell stories during the day.
As I’ve searched for my own voice to tell and retell the stories of railroads in Appalachia and throughout the world, I’ve been drawn to the night like my storytelling forebears. Whether it’s the sweep of a headlight beam or the soft glow of a beckoning signal, the impressions of modern railroading, just like my ancestral stories, grow in both meaning and mystery in the magic of the night.
