TRY THE TRAIN

“In  the year tht king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting  upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.”  (Isaiah 6:1).

My friend Ed Duddy is what I call a “model train nut”.  He is obscessed wtih model trains.  In Bible College he had a model train set up and running around his dorm room.  He would pass out pieces of model train track to people entering the main lobby of the dorm and tell them he was “passing out tracts”!  Ed loved to quote Isaiah 6:1 and would (tongue-in-cheek) speculate about what kind of train God has.

“He probably has THE REAL THING up there!” Ed would conclude.

A few days ago a woman from the Glen Road area of Wellesley called radio talk show host Howie Carr to complain about the train sounding its whistle near the Wellesley Farms station.  She whined that Weston is a “quiet town” which does not allow the sounding of train whistles and urged fellow Wellesley resident Howie to take up the cause of quieting the trains.  She also complained that her home’s foundation is being shaken and damaged by the trains.  Carr brushed her off.

The train is indeed a mixed blessing.  A couple of months ago I was at a meeting of  “Framingham Downtown Renaissance”.  A woman representing the Rosewood development of the old Dennison factory into luxury condominiums gave an impressive presentation.  One person present asked about the train noise and whether prospective buyers understood how loud the trains can be.  Her only reply was,  “sssshhhhh...”!

I for one am glad that Framingham is a “train town”.  I will admit that I’m NOT so glad when I’m stuck in gridlocked downtown traffic waiting for a long freight train to pass.  I do, however, love the fact that I can buy tickets at Garbarino’s Tobacco Store and take the train into Boston, or to Worcester if I so desire.  I’ve taken the train on numerous trips to Boston over the past fifteen years or so.  When I take the train my behavior is very much like when I fly on a commercial jet.  I’m one of those weirdos who actually LIKES a window seat and who enjoys every leg of the trip as if I were a ten-year-old kid.

The Wellesley woman does  SORT OF have a point, however.  I realize the engineers have to blow the whistle at major intersections, but some of them will give a ten or fifteen second BLAST at the 126 crossing!  When you are a pedestrian in the area, all I can say is “good luck”!  Your ears will hurt, and YOU’LL want to whine on the Howie Carr show!  

I’m not much of a fan of former Governor Mike Dukakis, but I do agree with him about the importance of train travel.  As bad as Boston auto traffic is, things would be CRIPPLED wirhout the commuter rail.  If you live in the Boston area and you’ve never ridden the commuter rail- to quote an old Alka Seltzer commercial, “Try it, you’ll like it!”