Reflections of Riding the Rails
Today most people traveling on business and pleasure go by private vehicle or fly on airliners. So many go by plane that air buses now carry many passengers in several rows of close seating arrangements. Passenger trains are greatly reduced except in highly built up areas like New York and other metropolitan areas. Vacationers take scenic trains through the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. I would love to take one of those scenic rides!
My first train ride was as a kid, when my Mother and Grandmother and I boarded a steam train at Clayton, Georgia to travel some 26 miles south to visit kinfolks in tiny Demorest. I loved such trains then and now, and this trip went well until I got a cinder in my eye by looking out the window when we crossed a high trestle across the lake at Tallulah Falls.
My first train ride in the service was from Atlanta to take basic training in Texas. A later train ride was a long one from Atlanta, Georgia to San Francisco, California. It was also a steam driven train and I took it as the first leg of a long journey to Korea. Florine, my wife, kissed me goodbye in Atlanta, where she remained and worked with Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company until I returned from Korea.
She saw us in uniform and politely asked if she could sit with us. “Could she? You bet!
Although sad upon departing on a journey I am always interested in seeing new country and views so I would sit by the train window from daylight to darkness, and sometimes beyond. The southern route through New Orleans was interesting, especially when we – a few recruits like me – had a short break there to change trains and decided to walk through the main drag. A group of young black guys danced around us and jeered but went on by. Next some girls leaned out upper windows and waved for us to come up, but no one dared. While eating supper in a restaurant a scantily clad girl danced across the long bar along one side of the room.
Going through Texas on that journey I craned my neck to see the unfolding western scenery I had read about in books written by Zane Grey and other western writers. Somewhere in that vast stretch of the west a buddy and I sitting in the dining car were amazed to see Susan Hayward come in. She saw us in uniform and politely asked if she could sit with us. Could she? You bet! She spoke of her marriage to a Georgia farmer and how it had changed her life, both spiritually and emotionally. She was on the train going to make a movie in Hollywood because she disliked flying and it gave her an interlude before entering the hyped up Hollywood atmosphere. We both thought she was lovely and seemed relaxed sitting and chatting with us.
I had other train trips after returning from Korea. When my ship coming home landed at Seattle, Washington, instead of San Francisco, where my wife awaited me as I miss-informed her, I took a scenic train down through the great scenic states of Washington, Oregon and northern California. Sitting in the dome on top of our coach I looked down on famous salmon rivers, roaring falls, scenic mountains and a few times entered dark tunnels cut through mountains. What a great way to return to meet my wife staying with a married couple I had become friends with, who had a cottage near the beach a few miles south of San Francisco.
