Toot toot!

When we bought our farm in 1979 we asked about the old railroad tracks that bisected the property. Our friend Kathryn, who sold us the property, told us that no train had ever come down the tracks in the fifteen years she had owned it. The tracks were in disrepair, the ties rotted and grass was firmly established. Our kids delighted in bringing railroad spikes and other assorted old iron parts they discovered during their adventures walking the tracks.

One day in the 1990’s, I heard a strange cacophony of noises coming from the woods. I ventured in the direction of the noise and found an automated track layer busy at work replacing the bad sections of track and all of the ties while laying a fresh bed of stone. They tore out my crossing in the process. One half of my farm is on the south side of the tracks, one half is on the north side. When I called the railroad they informed me that they had no intention of replacing the crossing.

Several years later my kids told me that the creek was now flowing under, not through, the culvert under the tracks. I called the railroad to let them know. Days later, a crew showed up, cut down a number of my trees to make a road down to the culvert. They pulled the culvert and replaced it with a much larger one. The workers threw their trash on the ground and made a big mess. I went down to the work site and asked them by whose authority had they cut my trees and made a road on my property. It was a nasty confrontation that resulted in me getting the name and phone number of the “person in charge”.

I was able to reach the “person in charge” . He asked what the railroad could do to make things right. I told him three things, apologize, clean up the trash and rebuild my crossing.

The crew came back, offered a genuine apology, cleaned up all of the trash and built an asphalt crossing with stop signs on both sides!

The trains came twice a day, once at 10:00 AM going east and once at 4:00 PM going west. Each way there were 4 or 5 cars. Because of the crossing, they are required to toot their horn repeatedly to alert us that the train was coming. The dogs bark too when they hear the horn. Hearing the train was nostalgic, it reminded me of the westerns I watched on TV when I was little. The trains would come into town and toot their horn.

Now the trains come four or more times a day, with 30 or more cars starting at as early as 4:00 AM and ending as late as 2:00 AM. I still like hearing the train blowing it’s horn, I just like it better after 6:00 AM and before 9:00 PM.

So what does this have to do with making bowls? The first building we built on the property was my shop. We built it dead in the middle of the property, about a hundred yards from the then defunct railroad tracks. Today the train sounds it’s horn just as it comes in line with the corner of the shop. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost jumped out of my skin when it takes me by surprise.

The crossing on our driveway. The stop sign is a little obscured by the tree leaves.