Right now there’s a lot of excitement in our house about trains coming. Well, most of that excitement is radiating from the shortest resident, The Boy aka Number Two. With his bat-like hearing he can pick up the faintest ring of the crossing signal bell from several miles away, indicating that a trolley is approaching. From that comes an altissimo screaming, “Train coming! A train coming! Choo choo train coming!! SCREEEEEEEECCCHHHH!” Much like with Christmas, the anticipation of arrival is as intense as the event itself. Number Two will peer down the tracks for the trio of headlights from a distant approaching trolley. Even if there’s nothing there he’ll often gasp and point, with his adorably chubby little finger, yellling “Right dere! Train coming! RIGHT DERE!”
Could this get more exciting? You bet your saggy mudflaps it could. Try doing trainspotting FROM A REAL LOCOMOTIVE. Yep, our little train museum in town (open from the impossibly tiny target time of 12-2pm on Saturdays) has a locomotive, cargo car, and a railman’s caboose. It also happens to be RIGHT NEXT TO THE TROLLEY TRACKS. Somewhere in rural France they are building a nuclear fusion reactor, a toroidal electromagnetic containment chamber holding a plasma of superheated energy many multiples hotter than the sun. Once complete, this reactor might be the key to clean and virtually unlimited power. But until it’s ready I suggest harnessing the excitement from Number Two when a trolley is coming down the track. TRAIN COMING RIGHT DERE!!!!
Writer, architect, father, husband.