Gas Stop On The Hi-Line - Shelby, Montana

"Go back to sleep. The hour is small.

     A freight train between stations

Shook you out of sleep with all

        Its lonely ululations....

The hour is small. Resume your rest. 

        Tomorrow will be kinder. 

Here comes a freight train nosing west, 

        Pulling the dawn behind her."

- From Lullaby Near the Railroad Tracks by A. E. Stallings

Read the full text of this lovely train poem here.

Super-Size Me - Missoula, Montana

"Last month at church, she had embarrassed herself half to death. 
The correct quote was, "I am a vessel for God's love, " but she had read out loud in front of the entire congregation, " I am a weasel for God's love." 
Earle had said that no one had noticed, but of course, they had." 

- Fannie Flagg, in The All-Girl's Filling Station's Last Reunion

 

Truth be told, I've been hoarding this quote for about a year, awaiting just the right "vessel" photo pairing.  Finally, I decided these tanker cars are a fitting match; not just because I'm tired of waiting and I love the train lines from this overpass view, but also because it's entirely fitting to aspire to be an industrial-sized transporter of God's love.(Right?!)

Perhaps a little stretch - "I'm a tanker car for Jesus" evokes a slightly different charm than "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam"... but it works - particularly for Thomas the Train fans!  
Just keep it on the rails and away from incendiary situations.

Pending Motion - Missoula, Montana

"So when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. 

And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. 

And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it's gone."

-Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

September Train - Missoula, Montana

"Then the long September cry rang from the thousand unseen locusts, urgent at the open windows of the train."

- from "Delta Wedding", page 4,  by Eudora Welty

Train Tracks Crossing the Clark Fork River - Missoula, Montana

"Now train tracks, hour upon hour, were leaving always to the past, to the land falling away behind the West." - Ivan Doig (1939-2015), This House of Sky, p 110

Rusted - Missoula, Montana

"You know, rust is just oxidation. The same chemical process as fire. Oxygen interacts with steel, electrons drift from one element to the other. So really, rust is a slow fire. Isn't that weird? Water causes something to burn." 
- from Cam Girl by Leah Raeder

(I'm not absolutely certain of this chemistry claim, but it sure sounds cool!)

Corresponding Lines, Missoula, Montana

"Mossbawn, my first house, was beside the railway. 
And along the railway, there ran telegraph wires. 
And along the telegraph wires, there used to run raindrops. And we used to think the telegrams were sent in the raindrops. 
So this is called "The Railway Children."

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting / We were eye-level with the white cups / Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires. 
Like lovely freehand they curved for miles / East and miles west beyond us, sagging / Under their burden of swallows. 
We were small and thought we knew nothing / Worth knowing. 
We thought words travelled the wires / In the shiny pouches of raindrops, / Each one seeded full with the light / Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves / So infinitesimally scaled / We could stream through the eye of a needle."
- Seamus Heaney, Poet and Much More (1939-2013), from an NPR interview 

Read and listen to the full story here.

Stationary, Missoula

As America’s transportation systems changed, small western train depots often were closed down. Many fell into disrepair or were torn down, while others have been converted to house new enterprises. The really lucky ones exist as well-maintained reminders of where we've been. 

In 1982, the old Drummond Depot was transported from Drummond, Montana, to its present Fort Missoula site, where it houses a railroad history exhibit. Click here to read more and view before and after photos.

Perspective Switch, Missoula, Montana

As I typed the title of today's post, thoughts began to swirl: convergence, change, New Year perspectives, switching to a new track, derailing old habits - you see where this could go, I'm sure. But, lucky for you, my lunch hour is drawing to a close too swiftly for any cohesive confluence of thought to make it to this page, so you'll have to apply the above dribble of pump-primer to your own brain.