Saturday, December 27, 2008

What a way to go

I returned today from a trip by train to Boston. I went down to spend the holiday with my friend Rick, as I have several times over the past few years. Normally I drive down, but the weather was supposed to be bad, and I really didn’t feel like dealing with the inevitable heavy traffic between Portland and Boston, and especially right around Boston, while also dealing with snow/sleet/rain and whatever else the weather decided to throw at us. So I made the decision to take the train. This necessitated an hour’s drive to Portland, but that was better than a total of two and a half to three hours driving, and traffic is never that bad between Augusta and Portland.

I was so glad I made this decision, even though the weather turned out to be not-all-that bad. I felt completely relaxed when I arrived, rather than a frazzled wreck. I was able to read, snack, doze, gaze out the window at the snowy landscape, and go to the bathroom whenever I needed to, rather than having to remain determinedly alert the whole time, lose time by pulling into a rest area when I needed to relieve myself, and do any snack-consumption while keeping one hand on the wheel and eyes on the road, an awkward business at best.

Actually, I would have to say that riding the train is a kind of heaven: the heaven of going – getting somewhere – accomplishing something, without having to exert any energy, or even remain alert.

I got my laugh of the trip when, following an announcement by the conductor as to why we had stopped (so that a train going in the other direction could go by on a stretch of single track up ahead), a man across the aisle muttered, “Right, better to stop – let’s not test the law of physics.” And a moment later he added, “It’s like that old math problem: if one train is heading north at 50 miles an hour...”

Some observations on the trip: a large, old, red-brick church across the street from the Dover, New Hampshire station, whose steeply slanted roof was dripping dramatically with long, pointed icicles. The small city of Haverhill, Massachusetts, with more huge old, red brick buildings, covered with a zillion windows, than anyplace I’ve ever seen. This has to have been some mill town. A quick perusal of its web site shows that, indeed, shoe manufacturing was the town’s main industry for 180 years. It sits on the Merrimack River, which would have provided the water power needed to run all those mills.

Then: it has always amazed me the way trains run right behind houses, or directly across the street from them. The reason it amazes me is that trains make a lot of noise, and the people in those houses must live with that noise several times a day. Besides the hoarse howl of its whistle whenever it’s approaching a crossing, there is the deep rumble of the engine. I know how loud that can be, because I could hear the rumble of the 11:30 train every night when I lived in my cabin-on-the-lake...and that train was a good half mile away. Imagine if it were at the bottom of your back yard!

I noticed this especially as the train was passing through Old Orchard Beach, a popular summer resort town just south of Portland. It’s a town of slapped-together motels, tacky arcades and local eateries (like Lisa’s Pizza). Also, of course, the Atlantic Ocean, which is no mean attraction. The town is very popular with vacationing Quebecois. The motels are all closed up for the winter, but in the summer the folks in many of those rooms are slap up against the railroad track. This would certainly be another factor in my having no desire whatsoever to stay in Old Orchard Beach.

The train arrives at and leaves from North Station in Boston, a very unprepossessing space beneath what was formerly Boston Garden, home of the Boston Celtics, now called BankNorth Garden. The main thing I noticed in the waiting area were the uncomfortable benches. They were attractive, looking like park benches with fancy black iron arms and legs, but the backs sloped, making it virtually impossible to sit up straight. You are all but forced to slouch down on your tailbone. Poor design in spades, and you have to wonder: what were they thinking.

They were also a few little things wrong on the trains: going down, the hydraulics were broken on the door at the end of my car, meaning you couldn’t open it by touching the pad, so the conductor left it open, making for a drafty ride (I eventually spread my coat over my legs). In that same car you couldn’t be absolutely sure the bathroom door was locked, since the little light only stayed on if you held the lock in the forward position. If you let it go, the light went off. Did that mean the locking mechanism had been disengaged? Since I have a real aversion to the idea of someone walking in on me while I am about this very private business, I sat on the toilet holding the lock in place...

All of these things that need taking care of make me wonder: couldn’t we use some of that stimulus package money Barak Obama is promising to bolster the train industry? Put people to work repairing train cars? Maybe redesign some waiting room benches?

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