Train Adventures

I love being in bed at night, hearing the far-off whistle of a train. It starts me thinking about adventure, travel, mystery and just plain fun. I have no idea why. It must be the result of years of movies and novels because my real-life train experience doesn't overlap with my fantasy at all. I only had the pleasure of being on a sleeper train once in my life. When my husband finished his tour of duty in Germany, we had to take our car way up to a port on the North Sea to have it shipped home. For the trip back, we had sleeping berths. We also had a seven-month-old baby. I'll tell you right now that these two items don't mix well. Sharing a berth with a baby that needed feeding and a diaper change or two and was besides, a very active sleeper, left me sleepless. I wouldn't have done too well by myself either because the soothing, rocking motion of the train was interrupted by frequent stops and other passengers arriving or leaving the room which had six berths. As I recall, there were private rooms, but we thought they were too expensive. We thought we'd be much better off than the trip up to get our car, when we slept in our seats. We really hadn't thought that one through. Shortly thereafter, we had a similar sleeping in motion experience. Squeezing in some travel before heading home, we went from Denmark to England by overnight ferry. Doesn't that sound like fun? Relaxing, even? We had a cabin to ourselves and a small crib for the baby, so I wouldn't have her flinging herself around next to me. But the water was choppy. Very choppy. At times it was rough enough that the baby was sliding and bouncing around like a popcorn kernel ready to pop. So, back into my bed she came. What stirred up these memories, you may wonder? We used to have a train line not too far from our house. It was the end of a local spur and was shut down years ago but the powers-that-be decided to reopen it. Construction has been going on for months, although I know better than to hold my breath. Have I told you about the traffic circle that was supposed to be done in six weeks and opened five months later? Only it isn't really done. Every once in a while it's blocked by trucks and people doing ... something. But I'm looking forward to occasionally hearing that whistle and dreaming again of adventure and mystery. I'm not about to let reality get in the way of a great fantasy.