Newest Threads

Beerthoven · 02-27-2008, 01:47 AM

My property is adjacent to a railway line. The tracks are only 150' or so from my house. They don't blow their horns when they are going by, so its not too noisy actually. But every once in a while a big heavy freight train goes by real slow. They shake the ground and make some odd clanking and hissing noises, and really deep rumbles. For a moment it makes me feel like a giant terminator machine is coming to kill me and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

eschatz · 02-27-2008, 01:51 AM

i have lived next to the train tracks for years. i just sleep through them. i dont even notice anymore. sometimes my friends complain about it but i just sleep through. you're probably right about that terminator thing though!

**Sea** · 02-27-2008, 01:52 AM

There isn't anything you can do to stop it, RUN!

**Evets** · 02-27-2008, 02:14 AM

I've always loved freight trains. I used to spend every Sat. on the tracks watching them. I only wished I lived next to a railroad track.

david_42 · 02-27-2008, 02:15 AM

I'm in the flight path between Portland and S.F. The planes are fairly high when they go over, but the shape of the valley produces some very odd multi-path rumbling. Even though I've been here 3.5 years, sometimes it takes a while to identify the sound. And sometimes, it's a piece of heavy equipment chomping its way through the forest.

Beerthoven · 02-27-2008, 02:19 AM

Normally I do like the trains. It was one of the things that attracted me to this house. My two boys absolutely love them. But every once in a while one goes by that has a certain menace to it, and it creeps me out.

Limited Visibility · 02-27-2008, 02:24 AM

In my small town we get a little over 100 trains a day and I don't even hear them anymore.

**Bedlam** · 02-27-2008, 01:12 PM

I've always had a fondness for trains and always wave at engineers when they go by. They almost always wave back.

But I agree that there can be a certain creepiness about them, which I'd always attributed to some scary stories that my great uncle used to tell me when I was a kid. He was the postmaster on The City of New Orleans (remember that song? Same train.). He used to tell ghost stories and was REALLY convincing. So trains have always had a kind of etheral quality to them in my mind...

beergears · 02-27-2008, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bedlam

I've always had a fondness for trains and always wave at engineers when they go by. They almost always wave back.

BMWMOA members, maybe..?

Beerthoven · 02-27-2008, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bedlam

I've always had a fondness for trains and always wave at engineers when they go by. They almost always wave back.

But I agree that there can be a certain creepiness about them, which I'd always attributed to some scary stories that my great uncle used to tell me when I was a kid. He was the postmaster on The City of New Orleans (remember that song? Same train.). He used to tell ghost stories and was REALLY convincing. So trains have always had a kind of etheral quality to them in my mind...

Trains and journeys "out of this world" have always been linked in my mind as well. Not sure why. I remember reading a book of ghost stories when I was young kid that had several stories with trains in it. One in particular where a man is given a stop watch by the Devil in exchange for his soul. The watch is magical and the man can press the stop button at any time to stop time and stay in a particular moment for ever. Of course, the man never does because he always expects something better to come along in life. Finally the Devil takes possession of the man and they are riding a train to Hell. The man pushes the button on the the stop watch before they get to Hell, so they are all trapped on the train forever. That one stuck with me. "The Polar Express" is a recent example of a train story that goes somewhere magical.