Bikes and Rails and Trains

The community I live in, and therefore do most of my bike riding in, has a train yard. As a result, there are a number of tracks that lead into town, to the train  yard. And because of this, no matter where I go riding around town, somewhere or another, I will cross a train track.  Sometimes, depending on the route I'm riding, I could cross tracks two or three times. And if I'm not crossing the tracks I'm often riding along side of them, sometimes for just a few yards, other times for blocks and blocks.

A lot of the times the tracks are empty.  In fact, there are some tracks where I have yet to see a train in the two years since I began riding bikes again.

That's actually okay because it means I don't have to wait on them in those places.

This track comes into town from the southwest and I have never seen a train on them.  At least, not at this intersection.

It goes on into town, heading into the train yard, and, while driving a car, I have seen an occasional train on it.  But I've never run into a train on this track while on my bike.

Sometimes, while riding a stretch of bike trail, where you can't go with a car, I'll cross a track.  Those crossing often have no crossing signals of any kind, just a little sign warning of the tracks and to watch for trains.  I guess that's usually sufficient because, at the speeds one usually travels on a bike, you can usually see train crossings and intersections well enough a head of time to know whether or not anything is coming, well before getting there.

At a crossing out east of town once I stopped on the tracks and could see for what seemed like miles in either direction - no train coming.  I took my time crossing that one. It felt like luxurious cheating.  Funny.

Some times you'll look down the track and see train cars stopped.  Often not hooked up to any engine.  The tracks are double as they come into the yard, beginning several miles out, and I guess they occasionally use them for storage. I've seen that along a number of tracks.  Interesting.

A clear view into town, toward the train yard, and no trains in sight.

Around town there are a number of bridges where the tracks cross the river, or goes over a lake.  They'll build a causeway and put a bridge in it so the water can pass freely between each side of the lake or pond.  Along the river there is a bike path that runs along the river for a couple of miles and, here and there, as you move along the trial, the train bridge comes into view and then goes back out of sight.

Gradually you get closer and closer to the bridge until the trail finally comes out of the "wilderness" and connects to a city street that runs parallel to the tracks for a ways.

If you stay on the path long enough it goes along city streets a few miles and then crosses the river on a bridge for regular auto traffic.  Then the path runs back down the river on the other side, going the other direction a ways, to where you again cross the same tracks and see the bridge from the other end.  There was one time when I was going up the one side of the river that just after I crossed the tracks a train left the yard.  I ended up waiting on it when I got across the river and came to the tracks on the other side. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long.

If you want to take a little side trip you can ride down to the river's edge, by the bridge.  That apparently is a popular fishing spot.

There are a few other bridges around town as well.  There is actually a second, smaller river that comes into town and joins the big river.  In another place, along the banks of that smaller river, there is another bike path.  The path and river run along to a point where there is a train bridge that crosses the river.  The bike path moves over and goes under the bridge so you end up riding your bike just a few feet from the water.  Kind of cool.

Some times the bridges are more like what I think of as trellises.  They are more decorative, if you can think of them that way.  I do.  And, instead of a single or a couple of support posts in the span, they will have multiple posts reaching down from the bridge.  If you were trying to run a boat under a trellis it might be a bit challenging, depending on the trellis.

They also seem to cross a smaller span.  And, around here at least, they are usually made of wood whereas the main bridge over the big river is steel.

I think they're rather picturesque.  A bit rustic looking, to my way of thinking.

At the train yard there is a train station.  Or what used to be a train station.  Now its offices.  While passenger trains do pass through town there is no stop here for passenger trains.

I've actually ridden my bike into the train yard, but only once.  It was by accident.  I wanted to take a couple of pictures of the train station and I wanted it from a couple of different angles so I rode across the track side of the station a little ways to a bridge that took the trains over one of the main drags through town.  When I got down next the bridge I noticed that the bridge was really quite wide.  You could have driven a car across without getting on to the tracks.  So I thought, "What the heck!" and rode across the bridge.  That put me in the train yard.

At that point it became one of those, "well, I wonder where this comes out?" kind of things so I kept going, deeper into the train yard.

It wasn't very far before I could see where I would be able to get out of the train yard but by then I had traveled a couple of blocks.  So I kept going and left the yard out the other way.  Nobody approached me, nobody said anything or even seemed to notice me.  I actually didn't see anyone in the yard.  Kind of interesting, though, to see the trains so close.

In the yard there were several engines, for moving cars around as they rearrange them into how they're supposed to be, depending on where they are heading.

 This train yard doesn't have one of the turnstiles where they run an engine or a train car on and and then turn it around, the equivalent of a round-a-bout on the road, I guess.  So the engines just go back and forth, hooking and unhooking train cars, moving them around until they are all hooked up and ready to leave the yard.  No doubt a complex process that would be easy to mess up, it seems to me. Kind of amazing.

So you have engines running all over the place.

Some times with a bunch of cars hooked up, other times with only a few, or none.

Most of the times I can cross the tracks without having to wait on trains.  But at the crossings on either end of the train yard, just outside the yard, those are the places where I am most likely to run into a train that I end up having to wait on.

It might be a train either entering or leaving the yard.  Or it might be the end of a train they're putting together, getting it ready to leave, poking out of the yard a little for a little while.

The trains leaving the yard are usually pretty quick and you don't often have to wait very long on them.

They're heading out of the yard and gradually pick up speed as they go. By the time the end of the train goes by they can be moving pretty fast.  That's nice to see.

 Its the trains coming into the yard, or being put together, that can sit and block the crossing for a long time.  They'll come in, gradually slowing down until they can often stop, without ever clearing the crossing.

Or they'll stop, sit a while, and even back up a little before stopping again.

Sometimes you can see the end of the train and have to wonder why they couldn't pull in just a little farther so the crossing would clear and you could go.

Some times the end will be real close.

This train was actually moving - it was leaving the yard and this was the tail end finally clearing the crossing.

I enjoy watching trains.  Every time one comes along while I'm riding, I have to stop and watch for a little while.

I remember once when I was a kid, driving up a canyon that had a train track going up the canyon along side of the road.  We were going the same direction as a train, both going into the canyon, and the car was going just a little faster than the train so there was plenty of time to watch the train as we slowly passed it.  Someone else was driving and I was on the right side of the car to be able to watch the train as we passed it.

 The weather wasn't too hot but also not cold.  As we pulled along side the train I looked down into an open car and saw a guy sleeping on the train car.  Hitching a ride.  A "hobo"?  Who knows.

 I thought it was an amazing way to travel.  I didn't realize people still did that - I thought that was a thing from the depression era.

I like the sound of trains, the pounding noise of the big diesel engines, big workhorse machines able to pull tons and tons of freight and train.  If you've ever been close to the tracks as the train goes by you can feel it in the ground, the ground moves and rumbles as the train cars move over it.  If you watch the tracks as the train is passing by you can see them move up and down as the wheels move along and the tremendous weight of each train car moves along, the wheels pressing down on the track as they pass by, the tracks sinking and rising again as the wheels go over.  The power it takes to be able to move a big, long train along is amazing to me.

If you've spent any time near a train yard you'll hear the train cars pounding together, crashing together as they hook them up to each other and build them into the big, long trains you sometimes see.  Some people don't like the noise of a train yard.  I'm not one of them.  One of my mission apartments was across the street from a big train yard.  I enjoyed the sounds of the trains.

One thing I've noticed in recent years about trains.  The newer train cars are clean.  That's how you can tell they are newer.

Its not uncommon to see these newer, clean cars.  They are all over.

But as they age and travel around the country, sitting in various train yards around the county, they get exposed to various elements.  After a while they get vandalized.  I guess that's what you would call it but I find it hard sometimes to think of it as vandalism.

Sometimes it will be simple graffiti.  A train will sit in a yard and someone with a can of spray paint will come along and pretty soon its not such a pristine looking train car any more. A simple name?  Maybe the writer's name?  Who knows.

But sometimes the writing gets a little fancy.  That's when it gets interesting.

I see this kind of writing on the sides of train cars and I begin to wonder about the person or people who put it there. Often the writing doesn't make much sense, either.  At least not to me.  It must have meant something to the person that put it there.

Frequently, it will be more than just writing - pictures get done as well.

A face here or there? Did they stop with just the rudimentary face on purpose or did they get interrupted?

Sometimes the writing will get quite ornate.  A real show of talent.

They say it was in the 70s that this kind of train art began showing up, turning some train cars into works of art suitable for framing.

Are these gang related? Gang tags applied as the car sat in this gang or that gang's territory?  Are they transporting messages around the country, covertly communicating with one another?  Who knows.

The artistic skill some of the paintings display is amazing.  I have to wonder how long it takes to do some of these.  Especially the ones that involve several colors and intricate lettering designs, fancy calligraphy, sometimes stretching the entire length of the train car.

Where there two artists, one working on each end of the car?

Lots of amazing art work on the sides of these trains.

 A civic reminder?

 Are these street names?  Are they English?  Most of them make no sense tome. But they are really pretty.

They say the train companies spend a lot of time, effort, and money covering the graffiti and repainting their technical markings but I don't see a lot of evidence of that.  I'll see an occasional train car that has had the bottom half painted a solid color - obviously covering up train art, and with the tracking markings back on the car.  Most often, though, when you see that there will be new artwork on top of the where they've done that.  Its like giving an artist a fresh, clean canvas.

I think there are too many and I'm not paying attention enough to know if the same car every shows up in town more than once.  I'm sure it happens from time to time but it would be hard to tell, unless you were the yard master and had a manifest, and kept track of that kind of stuff.. But I find the art on the train cars fascinating. I enjoy seeing it all around town.  Adds a bit of interest to the bike riding when I get around trains.