From Ohio we took a side trip to Michigan to see more family and friends. The first night in Michigan We stayed with our friends Erin and Jason. Their four-year-old son is into trains in a big way! His favorite movie is The Polar Express. When he was three, his parents took him to a train show where he fell in love with a "G" (for giant, I think) gauge Polar Express train. Ah, a bit too old for him. But fortunately his grandfather is a good friend of Santa's and a marvelous woodworker to boot. As a special favor to Santa, Papa made a wooden Polar Express train which was duly delivered on Christmas Eve.
This is just one of several handcrafted wooden trains Papa has made for him. And he loves them! Here's another:
Even our visit to Kalamazoo had trains in it. Here's Amtrak's Wolverine leaving Kalamazoo. We we're waiting to cross the tracks to get to Bell's Eccentric Cafe.
I love trains. I love the sound of them, the feel of them even the gritty smell of them. And I have to say, I think it's ridiculous what this country has done to railroads. Rail is still - by far - the most efficient way to move large amounts of freight from point to point over land. For that matter, it's the most efficient way to move people as well, although passenger traffic has never been a moneymaker for the railroads.
I could tell immediately when we turned off U.S. 23 onto I-94 in Michigan. The right lane was a nearly solid wall of 18-wheelers. It looked kind of like a train with a whole bunch of little tiny (relatively speaking) engines, each with it's own "engineer." Two things always come to mind when I have to drive among these trucks: the menace to drivers in much smaller vehicles and how much better a train carrying all that cargo would be. Nostalgic maybe, but very practical as well. Ah, well. When I rule the world.
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