TRAINS

A very young friend of mine is a committed Thomas the Tank Engine fan. It’s rare that I have seen him without a choo-choo in his hand. I am very pleased to see that. The gradual decline of railroading (both the model and real variety) is a sad loss to our culture. In my childhood no boy could imagine life without a train set. One of my earliest memories has to do with a wonderful train. It was summer a my family were vacationing at a cottage belonging to friends of my grandparents. My mother was not with us at the time. I believe she was still working, not having any vacation time available. She was to join us for the weekend. I should say all of this information I have learned many years after the event. I was far too young to know such things. All I remember on my own is standing at what must have been the train station when a magnificent steam locomotive pulling a passenger train approached the station. Huge, black, puffing steam, making clanking noises and hissing. I can see it in my mind now like watching an old newsreel from a long past age. (Well, so it is since this must have been around 1951, more than half a century ago.) I remember nothing about this vacation but the train and my mother stepping out of one of the cars. I was hooked.

The early 50s was a time when electric train sets still had tremendous popularity. One Christmas when I was about three, a train set appeared under the Christmas tree–not in a box, but already set up. My father had constructed a box with a tunnel through it. The Christmas tree sat on the box and train ran through the tunnel and around in front. This was a Marx train set. It didn’t do much but run around the track. Oh yes, there was a bell that rang every time the train passed a certain point. My parents quickly disconnected the bell which drove them crazy.

At the time I didn’t realize that this set made from inexpensive sheet metal was the bottom of the heap as train sets went, only a step above a wind-up train. Not till I got out and around with other kids who argued about the relative value of Lionel versus American Flyer. Fortunately, in 1957 I received a Lionel train set for Christmas. Lionel trains had all sorts of fascinating cars that actually did things. Each year for some years I received another card for the train: an automated barrel unloader, a car that delivered tiny cans of Boscoe, a mail car that popped open. Eventually my father built a large board the trains could run on complete with switches and an elevated track, but that meant the train was exiled to the basement. No care. It meant I could run it all year long and not just on Christmas.

I had to leave my trains in Chicago when I moved, but I eventually bought an HO gauge train to run around my Christmas tree. It never worked very well. A few years ago I found a Harry Potter Hogwarts express on sale. With the new type of snap together tracks it works quite well racing around my village of lighted houses during Christmas time. Just recently I purchased a wooden train set so the kids at church (including me) would have something to play with.

Opportunities to ride on real trains have been rare. I regularly used the elevated trains in Chicago to get downtown. I’ve used the Burlington, Northwestern, and Illinois Central lines to get farther afield. The only real train trip I took on my own was from Madison, Wisconsin to Minneapolis on the North Coast Hiawatha. I say from Madison, but that is quite right because the train no longer runs through Madison, the capitol of Wisconsin. Oh, no. The train only runs from Columbus, Wisconsin, a small town some miles from the city. You go to the old train station and catch a bus that takes you to the town with the train station. Well, it wasn’t all that bad because I discovered Columbus has a bank designed by Louis Sullivan.

I’d like to take a train trip again–in particular one that goes through the Canadian Rockies. Unfortunately the cost is enormous. So what isn’t anymore? I was in a store that sold old Lionel trains and saw the Milwaukee Road Diesel engine that I had. The price on it was $200, more than every bit of train equipment I ever owned put together.

Every year at Christmas time there is a train exhibit here in Ocala. I always go to see the trains even though it's basically the same thing every year. They always have old train magazines that they are giving away. I picked up Christmas 1989 issue because it had an article called "Trains in Church" There is a striking photo from 1949 (my birth year) of a small, wooden church with Alco DL109 engine pulling past. What a wonderful way to have a church. The author reflects on his childhood meditations on trains while at church where he thumbed through the hymnal looking for railway connections. The best one, which I have used myself, is the hymns "The Son of God Goes Forth to War"

The Son of God goes forth to war

A kingly crown to gain;

His blood-red banner streams afar,

Who follows in his train?

I was quite disappointed that this hymn is missing from the new Evangelical Lutheran Worship. At least we still have the prayer about railroads: "And lead us not into Penn Station, but deliver us from evil."

Even if you can't follow in a train, follow the path set before you. May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne