Riding the Rails

As a child, I was quite familiar with trains. I grew up with The Little Engine That Could, had the book and the record. The record was my favorite. It included a B-side story, The Submarine Streetcar, plus 2 songs; Casey Jones and John Henry (which, in case you don't know, Casey Jones was a real American hero. John Henry was a legend; not an actual specific person. But those are other stories!) I actually listened to the record so much I memorized every word of both stories, and could recite them by heart!



The story of The Submarine Streetcar is really a rather bizarre story about a trolley that, one day, reached the end of the line and kept going...off a cliff, into the ocean, where it has a quirky under-the-sea adventure rolling along on the ocean's floor!
   It was a cool and spooky!

Trains were still quite popular when I was a child. They were dangerous and glorious and fascinating. In my early childhood I lived near Puget Sound. At night I could hear the fog horn, if it was foggy, also the ferry horn, and trains! On calm clear nights I could hear the rhythm of its wheels. The whistle was a mysterious, romantic sound.

  My parents used to take us kids to ride an old locomotive at Snoqualmie Falls. We'd also go to Seattle and ride around on the streetcar.

  My parents also took us to the beach at Picnic Point Park in north Lynnwood. I loved that park. When I was really small, we had to cross the railroad tracks to get to the beach. I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I remember having trouble stepping over the rails. Dad would hold my hand and help me. Sometimes he put me on his shoulders. 
Sometimes while I was on the beach a train would pass by. If you waved at the red caboose, he would blast his horn in greeting.
   As a child I was fully aware of the dangers of cars and trains, so I knew what could happen if I wasn't careful. 
  The only part I didn't like about Picnic Point was having to cross the railroad tracks. My parents didn't like it, either.
  One day a two year old boy on a field trip with his daycare at Picnic Point was struck and killed on the tracks. So they built an overpass over the train tracks for pedestrians to get to the beach safely, and dedicated it in the little boy's memory.

Recently I was reading about the building of the American railroad across the nation. Building the railroad took lots of manpower and horsepower. It was hard, hot, dirty work. The men and teams worked like clockwork as they dug the railroad bed. There were no power tools, no tractors. They used horses with a plough and a scraper. Each  man had a job to do. They couldn't move too fast or too slow. While they worked, they sang.
   A railroad had to be as level as possible. Where the ground was low, they made it higher. Where it was high, they had to cut through the earth to make the grade level. It seemed like a lot of work, but it saved a lot more work and money (the trains burned more coal having to go uphill) by far.
    Just like Rome, railroads were not built in a day, but neither is anything else worth having. Take life one day and one step at a time. 

  Making the railroads level makes me think: 

"Listen! It's the voice of someone shouting, 

"Clear the way through the 

wilderness for the LORD! 

Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! 

Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills.

 Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places." 

(Isaiah 40:3a-4 NLT)

So let us enjoy this journey called life. Let us choose to work hard, be honest, choose the right path, and stop looking for some magical quick-fix. Let us persevere, and sing a little song along the way as we to drive dull care away!

The way of the righteous is smooth; O Upright One, make the path of the righteous level. Indeed, while following the way of Your judgments, O LORD, We have waited for You eagerly; Your name, even Your memory, is the desire of our souls.

(Isaiah 26:7-8 NASB)