Raise your digital hand if you've ridden a train recently. Here in these disunited 'states' passenger rail has been on life support since the 1970s, and aside from a bit of light rail, Amtrak is just about all there is. Know some of y'all live in places where taking the train is commonplace, but aside from some tourist-y shit I've only been on a train a handful of times.
Don't get me wrong, there's no lack of trains here but they're almost all freight. Before I go any further, I should probably mention this post's soundtrack, an album of train songs by Billy Bragg and Joe Henry. Pretty sure we move more freight by rail than anywhere else but it's the complete opposite when it comes to people.
Here in Louisville we see plenty of trains but their primary passengers are Ford vehicles from the two factories in town. There's no passenger service here at all, gotta drive a couple hours to catch a train, but there's been some promising noise about possibly getting us on the Amtrak map.
Down in eastern Kentucky where I grew up, coal was the only thing going on trains. Coal don't keep the lights on like it used to and nowadays there's no trains at all there.
I hear they're making some mighty fine knives out of railroad spikes these days. Guess that's one way of 'what's old is new again'...
Couple years back we were standing on the banks of the Ohio River in the predawn dark, waiting on the Amtrak Cardinal to take us to Washington DC. The glow of the station against the dark was more than I could resist and I had to break out the Nikon.
Listening to the sounds of the train as we jolted and swayed our way along the rails, I couldn't help but remember that this is technology from the early 1800s. The fit and finish has gotten better, and safety has improved by a hair but by and large things haven't changed much.
If it works, it works I suppose. Have always had an interest in trains but for inexplicable reasons have never set out to take photos of them. These photos are more incidental than planned, and span multiple occasions and locations.
Do subways count as trains? Asking for a friend.
Graffiti and trains just go together, like war crimes and war. If you've got one, it's only a matter of time until you have the other. With how hard we try to ignore both, I should probably spend more time documenting it. The graffiti that is.
This post is just about to go off the tracks so I should probably wrap things up. What's the status of the #trainlife where you live?
