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| Clickety clack Somewhere near Oakville, ON October 2012 Please click here for more shiny Thematic |
There's something reverent about sitting in a train and just listening to the sounds of travel. You can almost feel the rails below you, and if you close your eyes just so, you can almost go back in time. i know that's stretching it a bit, but it's been a long, productive day in the big city, and I'm kicking back on the train home.
My GPS app tells me we're doing 147 km/h...which I'm guessing is the point at which I really should stop looking at the GPS app because, well, this is Via Rail and my uninformed gut tells me they really shouldn't be pushing these old trains that fast.
I'm all for the romance on rails thing, but I really just want to get home in one piece so I can see my family again.
Your turn: What is the appeal of rail travel? Or not...I don't want to presuppose.
One more thing: I left the camera at home for this trip. It was a quick one - one night, all day conference, then train back home - so I was trying to keep it light. Instead, I carted my iPad with me, and dutifully shot from the train window, and again as I walked through downtown Toronto. It's a little freeing to have such a simple piece of kit - it forces you to think about your shooting with a little more care. To wit, this shot: it betrays the iPad's inability to handle anything in motion. Still, the controlled blur that resulted somehow feels like more of an achievement than a tack sharp one from my DSLR would have been. I had to work for this one.
I love travelling by rail, but in Australia, we don't have (in NSW at least) suitable 'fast rail' alternatives, so its a slow old affair. Whats more, CityRail, the day-to-day commuter offering, is really chasing its tail a little - sure we are having new rolling stock introduced, but its long overdue (delayed) and well over budget; but thats a discussion for another time!
ReplyDeleteI love your shot and have a few from Via rail of my own. There is a sense of comfort traveling by train, you just don't get it in a car, plane or boat.
ReplyDeleteThere is something quite soothing about the regular clicketty-clack rhythms of a train! But I am remembering old days - growing up and always travelling by rail. Now, other odd, unfathomable rail sounds seem to intrude and the unexpected back jolt motion does nothing for serendipity. The Melbourne trains are tired and they're still being whipped into performance mode.
ReplyDeleteLove the grooved perspective of the rails in your photo!
i totally adore train travel!
ReplyDeleteall those people i've never met before, conversations just waiting to be listened in on, stories waiting to be told over a table....
it's the faces to watch and the funny ways we all colonise our own spaces
i'm in 'people watching heave'n and quietly OD away...
:)
I 'travel' by rail almost every day as an engineer on freight trains. To me it's a job but one that I think "suits me" as my wife once said.
ReplyDeleteSomeday I'll let someone else sit up front so I can take in the view and see it from another perspective.