Thundering Rails

Somewhere in the silence of the night, a child slumbers peacefully. Somewhere, a child hears the sound of a train. The lonely wailing of the whistle, the long, heavy rush and rumble of the wheels. >> [music] [music] >> And nothing but silence. Darkness. The huge hush and secrecy of night. The running sweep of moonlight silhouettes the countryside and the long, slender bands of steel shine and gleam. Only the tracks are awake. They hear the sobbing siren of the fast express. Or danger in the sudden flares. They see the swing and bob of lantern in the yards. Tracks recoil and shudder beneath the sudden glare and hiss of the mighty engines. They pulse under the pounding rhythm of the huge driving rods. Upon their cold steel surface, the transcontinental limited stroking 100 miles an hour across the continent, and the small, dark towns whip by like bullets. And there is only the stark silence of the secret, immense, and lonely earth again. >> [music] >> America is a land of trains, joined by a steel network [music] of rail and wire, woven into miles of multiple paths. Great train sheds, dense with smoke and acrid with its [music] smell, full of the slow pantings of a dozen engines. Rows of silent cars along the platform, their windows dark, their wheels not turning. Helpless cars, waiting for engines to give them life and mobility. Impatient cars, eagerly awaiting purpose and destination. America is a land of stations, high-roofed, mighty stations [music] with their intricate webs of girder, glass, and concrete, filled with a million watts of yellow light, reflecting off the slick, bright covers of magazines on the newsstands, shining on the cold marble floors. Mighty stations with their ceaseless throngs, endless tides of humanity, guided by man-made timetables, ebbing and flowing forever. Here is woven the tapestry of America on the move. A little child standing forlorn [music] by a pile of baggage. An anxious old couple in front of the arrival and departure board. >> [music] >> The hellos, goodbyes, handshakes, clasped arms, kisses restrained, kisses unabashed. [music] Farewell, sad as a youngster leaves for an army camp, the homemade cake under his arm. Gay as the honeymoon couple embarks amid wilted flowers, best wishes, and a shower of rice. All are people going to and coming from, meeting for an instant, exchanging a hurried glance, studying timetables, a murmured apology, and then on to a destination never to meet again. >> [music] >> And the sounds of a station, underneath the shuffling of thousands of feet, the light tattoo of high heels. A sudden shriek of laughter. The hoarse, monotone voice of the loudspeakers straining to be heard over the din. The excitement of a station with all the murmurous and remote sounds of time, the hint of faraway places, the thrill of strange names, the anticipation, a feeling of nervous tension as the hands of the clock reach the appointed hour. It is the mood of movement, a world of nameless excitement and wordless expectancy. The conductor hurries down the platform. The train is ready for its run. Trains cross the continent in a swirl of dust and thunder. They cleave through gulch and gully. They spread thunder along the trestles above brown, shorn fields. They rip past empty stations of little towns, and their great, wide sound is felt across America. >> [music] >> The rails go westward. Have you ever heard the wheel thunder of the mighty engines? The great iron auction of the railroad. Powerful and mighty engines, they pant, they breathe, they fume with the effort of their tremendous vibrations, snorting with rage when they're halted, sighing with resignation as they wait for the blast that releases them, sending them hurtling forward. Engines are iron, steel, copper, aluminum, mixtures of ores extracted from the earth and twisted and hardened into a thousand parts that go into its body. Do you think an engine is devoid of feeling, of emotion? Then look, a herd of monsters has broken loose. Down the tracks they thunder, racing for joy, bellowing challenges to each other, roaring and boasting of their strength and speed like the herds of wild, tough-skinned buffalo that used to roam the west. But Buffalo Bill is now a faded legend. And the boy dreams of another hero. The engineer of a steam locomotive. He dreams of the 5:15 rolling into town. Of waving to the smiling figure in the cab, proudly cherishing the casual, friendly greetings of his idol. The lad anticipates the sudden shock and thrill as the tiny spurts of steam grow in force and sound and intensity as the engine gathers speed and roars past the station, dragging all life and color and foliage drawn in its wake. The coal miner, the lumberman, the wheat farmer sees the giant locomotive swing slowly around the bend, and with short, powerful, explosive blasts from its funnel, it gathers speed and lunges forward. THE MINER, THE LUMBERMAN, the farmer pause in their labor. He is awestruck at the terrific drive of eight block piston wheels, a savage furnace flare of heat, a hard, thick piston steam, a moment's vision of a lean old head, a gloved hand of cunning on the throttle, and the blackened face of the fireman framed by an intermittent fury of flame as he bends and sways at his furnace door. The modern diesel-driven locomotive speeds across the slender ribbons of steel, hitting a speed of 100 miles an hour. It is the first real rival of steam on the railroad. The diesel is a silver flash across the prairie, a streamlined wind splitter, frost-clad challenging the elements, devouring space, coldly racing time. The cab is clean, workmanlike, as brightly sterile as the modern kitchen. No longer the red heart of the train, but now the brains, cold and calculating. Signals of safety, each a warning, each a reassurance. >> [music] >> Daily, the engineer watches the dials. He turns to glance at the countryside rushing by in a blur of once-familiar shapes and sights. A lonely crossroads suddenly becomes alive. Safety signals spring into action, automatic guardians of the road, clear a right-of-way. Swift, tremulous swirl of wheels and veils of wake on gleaming track. A switch tower, sentinel of safety, highballs the onrushing train. Speeding tons of steel distort and blur the landscape through which it slashes a trail. All through the day, the fast express roars over the silvery bends. >> [music] >> The train toils around mountain curves, sometimes in a slow arc that from the rear car reveals the engine, tiny and toy-like in the distance. >> [music] >> It shudders through giant passes, the high walls of stained rock shutting out the light and threatening to engulf the long steel-skinned intruder. >> [music] >> Sometimes the train slows, then it gathers speed with a tremendous burst of power as if to make up for lost time, [music] impatient to get out of the mountains, anxious to hurdle the restraining gulches, gorges, gaps, [music] and wild ravines. The train labors slowly down the mountain grades, feeling its way along the sinuous [music] turning as if crawling down the back of an enormous serpent. Then suddenly the train is on the flat again, gathering speed to race across the level land, booming, [music] bursting with power. The great wheels pound and smash across the prairie. It cuts through giant forests. It splits [music] the fields of wheat and corn. A frightened cow scampers for safety. >> [music] >> The huge beams of trestle bridges shudder under the impact. The slender bridge of steel sways under the strain. The wind-ruffled surface of a river fuzzily mirrors the onrushing monster. A tugboat toots a greeting. A startled fisherman has to re-bait his hook. Sun-brown boys cease their swimming and splashing to stare in awe. It is more than a train crossing a river. It is a giant leap [music] from shore to shore. The train intrudes upon the serene brooding of a quiet lake, elegantly skirting the shore, its whistle apologizing for the noise and the rush and the steam and the raw power. A deer stops drinking at the water's edge, its liquid eyes filled with fear. A flight of wild fowl arise from the rushes, honking in protest. Then just as quickly as it came, the monster is gone. Nature has slammed the door and all is quiet again. And all the while space is being hungrily devoured. The three dimensions are being gulped down in huge chunks by the fourth. Time is brought to a standstill, held to the limits of a [music] timetable. The train is thundering across the continent, a huge projectile fired from the Atlantic to the Pacific in flat trajectory. [music] A hard-shelled tube in which people live and sleep, play [music] and make friends, eat and work. >> [music and bell] [music] >> The train is a city on the move. Want to borrow something from your next-door neighbor? Don't shout over the fence. Lean across the aisle and ask him. >> [music] >> The men who run the city on wheels are always on the job. City Hall is downtown in the engine with His Honor the Mayor at his post as engineer. >> [music] >> Want to see the post office? The mail sorters are busy making up the delivery for the next stop, or perhaps they'll just throw it off, disdaining to slacken the pace for some small sleepy town. Where's police headquarters? In the hard, round, blue cap of the conductor, responsible for order and safety. These are some of the people who run the city on the move. And yet, is the train just like a city? Was there ever a city in which citizens lived in vague awareness of the mad surge of earth going by at tremendous speed? How long does it take to walk from your seat to the water cooler? A few seconds to cover 30 ft. And yet you've gone nearly a mile. Did you fall asleep in New Jersey? Don't be shocked if you wake up in Ohio. >> [music] >> Were you looking at the state of Iowa while having soup in the diner? And you might have dessert in Nebraska. 15 mi per course is pretty good eating. The train is thundering across [music] the continent. >> [music] >> Trains are neighbors. A pinpoint in the distance grows and grows and becomes another train, roaring, [music] plunging over the rails. >> [music] >> Then the train is gone in one projectile smash of wind-like fury. >> [music] >> Trains are neighbors. If a train is named Jones, another wants to keep up with So for miles the two trains thunder down the track in an even thrilling, tremendous contest of steel and dust and whirling wheels. Gradually one train bores its way past the other, foot by foot. And now, as if with recollected force, the train gains power from the train it has passed. It leaps, gathers, springs, and smashes on with newfound fury. At length the train has breached the last great wall of the soaring ranges, has made its sinuous descent around the powerful bends and corkscrews of the shining rails. Towering ranges melt swiftly into darkness. Night envelops the train, the tracks, and the land it moves through. And the train takes up its level pounding rhythm across the swell and convolution of the mighty continent. On board the passengers settle down for the run through darkness. Berths are made. The clicking of the wheels, the slight roll and rock weaves a lullaby [music] in drowsy rhythm, vaguely aware of the secrets of dew rattling past thick green curtains. The low tones of the porter gathering up the shoes. [music] The lonely wailing whistle as the lights of a little town whiz by like a trail of comets. The train moves on across the immense, lonely night land of America, making its great monotone that is the sound of power and security. And in the train and in the 10,000 little towns, the sleepers sleep upon the earth. >> [music]