A Free nonfiction E-Zine that explores all areas of reality, updated by the 1st of the month.
Our December 2006 Edition
Home | Archive | Books & Sites | Contact Us
There was an air of holiday spirit flowing in the wind that told me about the train. Okay, it was a article in my newspaper, telling me that the Canadian Pacific Railway's "Train of Lights" would visit the area on its three day tour from Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was supposed to show up in the downtown area of Oneonta around four p.m., which meant that in order to catch it before the crowds, we had to go to a small hamlet called Wells Bridge just west of downtown by three-thirty. This railway ran parallel to the interstate, carrying freight cars that ran for miles and miles. One time I counted the amount of cars in the train, and it was over a hundred cars that went by.
To preempt the train, we booked an hour of extra time before the train was supposed to show up in Wells Bridge, just to make sure that we'd get there first. We headed west, just like many who took a train to find the gold rush many years before. I looked for the train as we drove, wondering if somehow it was going to arrive early. I don't know why I thought that; it seemed like we had a lot of time, nothing to worry about. I wondered if this was like an adult's version of looking for Santa's sleigh, like a sleepy kid who went to a late service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Mass, knowing that both hands of the clock had reached up to its high point of midnight. But we simply wanted to see the train. After all, I was an adult now.
As we went west, we drove on an overpass that crossed both the interstate and the railroad. A train ran on the tracks towards the east, but I didn't see any unusual decorations on it from where I could see. Looked like just another freight train to me. There was a guy with a camcorder standing on the bridge with a couple of other people, all intently looking west for their adult holiday cheer. We passed Coca Cola trucks stationed at a closed down truck stop, and a fishing access closed for winter. But there was no time for pondering on the isolation of winter. The holiday train was coming from Pennsylvania to spark warmth into the old bones of winter. Even though the temperature was in the forties, and there was no holiday snow to speak of.
It was about 3:30 or so when we reached our destination of Wells Bridge, which as far as we had planned, was just in time. There was an empty parking lot by bridge that gave Wells Bridge its name, which crossed the railway. A white warehouse lived on the lot and kept us company, while across from us and parallel to the tracks were several houses which had the train as a front room view. Three thirty came and went, to three forty five, and then nearly four. The only other person that was there was a woman parked along the tracks sitting on the hood of her car, looking like she was waiting for the train to come by to get a first hand view just like us. But then a schoolbus came by and unloaded several kids, and she walked across the street with one of them to one of the houses and disappeared.
Then all of the sudden, we were startled by the sound of a loud train engine, even though we'd been looking for it. We jumped out of our van in anticipation, and here came the train: the wrong way. One of those huge freight trains deafened us for the next five minutes heading west, leaving us standing there as though we had lost our connecting flight to Maui and now we'd have to spend the night on the streets of Cleveland. Why was this monster heading west if there was another train coming east? It wasn't like there were four tracks for each train to slip by on. Something seemed off with this whole thing.
So there we were, looking at the speck disappearing west like we saw our bright future disappearing on the Pacific with the ‘49ers of old. Just then, a man in his sixties wearing a bathrobe came running out from one of the houses across the street, heading directly for us without even looking across the street as he crossed. Great. It looked like one of those scenes where the guy comes out and yells at the kids for stepping on his lawn when their ball strays over there. So what now?
"Are you folks looking for the holiday train?" he yelled merrily like Santa's helper.
"Yeah, we are," was our reply.
"You missed her. She's already on her way to Oneonta. She came by here at oh, around 3:20 or so."
Which means the train I saw snaking past us on our way here had been our train.
So off to Oneonta and the holiday crowds that came with it. "Tis the season to be crowded, and all that holiday cheer. Market Street, the street where the train pulled in. was of course jammed with cars, baby carriages, and people. So much for the solitary viewing of the train. The street looked more crowded than a mall on Black Friday. Revelers lined the street, and through the windows we could hear holiday music flowing from the train, which lay obscured through the crowds. Our next option was to go to Neahwa Park, the day park where in the summer, kids swung on swings and the Oneonta Tigers played baseball .
There were parking spaces there, and we soon found out why. All we could see was the back end of train, and not much else through the brambles that surrounded it. And the park entrance that would have led us to the train was closed. The only way we could get to the train was to walk the entire length of the park, walk through a couple blocks of town, and then swing back. This would run about a half of a mile or so, just to stand in the far end of the crowd looking at the back end of people's hats, or missing the train altogether.
The only other option was to jump the tracks along this wobbly looking bridge, which for one, was wobbly, and two, was gated off, so it didn't seem like a great option. It seemed more like the Great Train Robbery rather than Deck the Halls. You could hear a bunch of people singing Christmas carols on the other side of the train. I guess there was some kind of show they put on at each stop. But from my place, it was like witnessing a holiday party where the whole town was invited but you.
So after staring at the train from its back end, only a couple of outlined lights of Christmas trees and candy canes sticking through behind all the brambles, we decided that maybe there was a better way without risking jail and still getting a closeup view. The train was due to be in Cobleskill at 7 pm, which was about an hour and a half by now. Why not head east, towards one of the smaller towns there, and see if we could catch it there? We made our way back to our van, the music becoming fainter and fainter. All of the sudden, it stopped. In the ten minutes that we walked, the train pulled away. Good thing we hadn't wasted our time walking around, and good thing we hadn't jumped right into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
The train, for the most part, paralleled the highway of I-88. But of course, we couldn't stop on I-88 and watch it. So, care of technology in the form of a GPS, we configured where the tracks would align with the local road NY 7. For a short time, we played catchup with the train, its decorated cars flashing like a beacon in the night sky. Then we overtook it, gaining ground on it as we aimed for our new destination, Schenevus. The lights sparkled behind us until the train lost our scent.
We reached the town of Schenevus, a sleepy hamlet made all the more somnolent by the winter night. The few stores that normally opened in the daytime held the silent cast of slumber, and as soon as we passed them, the lights were gone and the road darkened. We were on our own to navigate our way and find a place to park so we could wait out our destiny. The road that we pulled over was so small that it wasn't even marked as a street in our GPS, only as a small blip that stuck itself out in civilization. But right there, the train tracks sat in front of us.
For a short time, we were the only people by the road. Occasionally, a car would drive by on NY 7, passing by us without even knowing we were there. The cars coming from the long dark road ahead of us looked as though they would crash right into us before they came more clearly into view, we were that close to the road. We weren't sure if we were situated legally or not, having seen no "Private Property" signs but nothing to indicate that this was public land. So when the occasional car drove over the train tracks past us on the long dark road ahead of us, we wondered if they would question us. But no one did. It was just another day in the life, and we were scenery that they were oblivious to.
Then we had company. A car crept by us on NY 7 heading east. Suddenly, just at a point where perhaps we were visible if you were looking for us, he/she stopped and turned around. Then, he/she slipped past us heading west, and stopped again, turning around. He/she drove up to where we were, found an adjacent spot and stopped. I waited for someone to get out of the vehicle, but no one did. I guess the individual had the same idea as we did, and used our car as a landmark. Soon after, a couple other vehicles filed suit, treating us as the lead car in the train to watch for holiday cheer. Some, like us, got out of their vehicles. The air was still mild enough to stand outside for a short time. But most stayed warm in their vehicles. Coziness has more of a holiday feel to it than jumping up and down to keep warm.
Suddenly, Rudolph's red nose lit up in the distance. Actually, it was just the red signal light indicating that a train was coming from the west. Bright lights began to appear, and they seemed like an optical illusion simmering through the trees and mixing in with the street traffic adjacent to it. The Canadian Pacific train rolled through, bringing its cargo of Santa and its elves with it. The lit up Christmas trees and candy canes flashed hello, as well as a costumed elf that waved at us as he whizzed by. Inside, Santa and his other associates sat down to dinner, providing a colorful display of holiday moments as they created a moment of splash before they disappeared for their next stint in their big three-day tour.
So we'd caught the train in the wild just as we planned. Actually, it wasn't exactly how we planned, but we caught it anyway. We drove away with the other revelers who took the track less ridden and watched the lights of the holiday train disappear in the hills behind us.