Trains Planes And Autobuses (Sorry no Automobiles)

I’m well on my way to Paris; I’m at least at the train station in Heidelberg waiting for the train. This will be my first legal ride on a train other than a city train (tram) going for just a couple of blocks.

You see, when I was going to high school (yes, I went to high school, well most of the time anyway, sorry Mom) we lived the better part of 3 miles away, no it wasn't up hill both ways what do you think this is a old grandpa story (wait I am an old grandpa, sorry still no hill), although, the snow did make it interesting at times. During the warmer parts of the year my friends and I would walk to and from school. We didn't have a car, wouldn't have done us any good if we did, we didn't have a license and bikes were not as cool as they are now. Well, it just so happened that there was a railroad yard between the school and the route we would take (it was only a few (6 maybe 7) blocks out of the way, give us a break, there were real trains involved, we had no choice!). Trains and teenage boys (you do know that magnets attract each other right, this was worst then magnets), I bet you couldn't guess of what happened next.

After timing the schedule of the trains as they worked for a couple of days (we were just watching the trains as we did school work, honest), it just so happened that the trains would eventually correspond their passing with our walks (imagine that), so being the typical boys we were, we just fell (had to hop a little) into one of the box cars as it passed (just like they use to do during the depression, we may have had to run a little). And just because it happened often (at least when we walked) doesn't mean it was a on going thing.

The engineer eventually caught us and chewed us out because of the danger of the ordeal, what did he know. As if he only knew, we were teenagers and invincible, beside he didn’t know that we had been doing this for at least a couple of days, we were professionals. You know how some teenage boys think when their manhood is challenged; we just had to prove him wrong, right?

The engineer did offer us a better alternative though (I guess he knew us better then we knew ourselves, imagine that), he said that if we would stop trying to jump onto the moving train, that he would stop the train and let us on the engine to ride the half mile to where we had to get off and finish the walk to school, as long as the yard house didn’t find out. He would then explain to us how the engine worked and then proceed to tell us stories of when he would travel coast to coast.  I think he enjoyed telling us the stories as much as we wanted to hear them.This went on until we got our driver’s license and drove to school.

This train ride is almost as exciting, I’m in a foreign country, I don’t speak or read the language (German), my tickets were purchased in another country (France), and I can’t read what they say (French), I would say that this is going to be one interesting trip. As Alastair Sim once said, "I'm as marry as a school-boy. I'm as giddy as a drunken man."

Airports, train stations, and bus stops can get very interesting places, but you have to take your time, observe, and compare the actions of the people to, oh let’s say creatures that you are familiar with. To me the people at the airports and bus stops are like cattle heading their way to the slaughterhouses. The people line up to get their tickets like cattle lining up to get inspected, then they are prodded or guided so to speak to a waiting area waiting to board their cattle cars. After as many as the “ranchers” can pile into the cattle car (airliner or bus) they are taken to slaughter (their final destination). As for train stations the people are like insects; ants, if you have ever noticed ants, they travel in two directions at different speeds; one away from the hole and the other towards the hole. When the ants find something interesting they congregate around the interesting item whether it be food or something to be moved. At the train station people do the same thing, they travel to and from the trains and the exit (or entrance); some are running to catch a train, some wandering trying to find their way, but always moving in two directions.  Some find food in the food court, once one has found the food; others must congregate there as well. Some gather around the ticket counter, same thing, when one person stops to buy a ticket then others all must stop. After which they then run, walk, or stroll to their destination (away or toward their hole), the place is always busy, the people never stop moving, some may rest a bit, but then realize the time or see someone they know and off they go.

Well it is my turn to play ant as I am now off to board my train destined to Paris. I have boarded the train so my turn of being an ant is over for the time being. There won’t be any pictures, I don’t have a window seat and leaning over some stranger to take pictures, I don't think so. Also I will be assuming that the train will be traveling between 30 and 200 kilometers per hour and taking pictures at the last speed would just turn out blurry, sorry.

I’ll take a brief moment and try to describe my train ride the best I can. Imagine driving your car to the top of the highest mountain that you can find, one with roads that twist and turn, both sides of the road are over hung by trees and greenery with the occasional tunnel and village or city to drive through. Make sure that your brakes are metal against metal, shut your motor off and start coasting down the mountain all the way down to the bottom. (The reason you need the mountain is so that you can coast and get the forest affect, you could try to have someone tow you, but you’d have to be a far enough behind him so you have just the noise of the air rushing by, plus you’d lose the overhanging trees.) Try maintaining a steady speed of let’s say 25 to 75 miles per hour and you will have to slow down once in a while apply your brakes to get that scraping sound especially when you get to a village or city. Also, half the passengers will have to turn around and face backwards. I’m riding backwards trying to see where I was, but at the same time I want to see where I’m headed (to me that sounds a lot like life and another blog discussion), but all I see are trees with the occasional opening of fields, with a scattered village or farm here and there. The trains are electric which eliminates all the noise, which is why you have to turn off the motor. That is basically what I see and feel, the peace and quite the gentle rocking with the occasional turbulence when the train goes around a curve or passed by another train going in the opposite direction, but the turbulence is more of a small earthquake side to side movement and not the stomach loss drop like in an airliner. But, that is another story, right now I want to enjoy the blurred green of the trees and the open brown (the hay is ripe) of the fields, the occasional herd of cows and sheep before it gets to dark.

Until the next time – You don’t need a parachute to skydive, you just need a parachute to skydive more than once.