He walked down the tracks, yes it was illegal and some would call it stupid but he liked doing it. Was it really a crime when it’s what you enjoyed doing most in the world? Probably…but if you couldn’t walk it…why did they call it a railroad?
Marianne Bowen
In the past 2 weeks or so there have been 3 teen deaths in my hometown. A few months ago, in a neighboring town, even more affluent, there was a similar trend. I think three suicides. Several of those kids laid down on train tracks and let themselves get run over. I can not even imagine watching the train come a smash me. Oh haha looks like I accidentally gave myself another minute. Anyway, i am so proud of my community for in this all happening, everyone has just began to express their love for anyone. I kind of hate that it takes something extraordinary for that to happen. Done.
julia
Walking down a long and lonely railroad. I don’t bother looking behind me, I’d rather spend my time thinking about the future. And if I don’t see the train then I won’t feel a thing. I hope from track to track hoping that one day I’ll find you, coming the other way on a track looking for me
There’s nothing more lonely than the sound of the train at night. Freight trains only, never passenger trains after the sun has long since set. Trains coming from great distances and foreign places, a little bit of there passing through here. I feel I am the only one awake in the world to hear this train, sole witness to its homeless song.
I’ve been working on the railroad all the live long day. You know those childhood memories that are all haze? That song is intimately tied up in those memories. I remember the dance where you pretended to nail stakes into the ground and they children’s characters danced away.
Meg
i’ll never forget that movie. it was about someone who was killed on a railroad. it was beautiful. the huge, long lines that cover the dusty, unearthly terrain of australia. i say unearthly, because it’s hellish in its way, but at the same time, it’s the only earth of this country. dry, red and bleak
Linda
She crossed her fingers and wished for blue. Eyes clenched, she thought of blue birds and blue berries and the deep blue ocean. Anything blue. Sky blue, navy blue, aqua blue. Blue bonnet, blue curacao, blue … She thought of him walking away. She knew what he would think if it wasn’t blue.
A railroad is a way to escape. To run from your fears and to run to your hopes. I like railroads- I like watching them rush in front of me, eventually fading into the distance. Sometimes I feel like I just want to walk along a railroad. Just to see where it would take me. I would walk along it for hours. Days. Months. Years.
M. D.
Trains drive on them. Wooden planks aross then. Rocks inbetween them. You can walk on them. Along the sides of roads. over roads. :) Fun to ride on.
Samira
Sometimes I go down to the railroads. Maybe I slap a cool penny right down on the tracks. I watch it flatten in like it’s nothing. What if that was me? Would I be flattened? What would it be like? Hopefully, I’m never in the place to find out.
Kevin
When we walked across the railroad, it seemed as if we were on the right side but then the same things happened on the other side…didn’t it? It’s funny how we don’t know what we have until we change sides or go to other places. Appreciate what you have, ALWAYS!
Lionel Tomlinson
documentary with hillary clinton they found two boys dead on the train tracks. the police and autopsy said they were killed by the train but clearly the bodies were shot in the head and one was beaten with the butt of a rifle. i went on some train tracks a few weeks ago with my friend kim, we decided to walk to her house after the brewer game and crossed a railroad. we sat on the back of one of the cars and drank some water before jumping down and venturing again. railroad tracks used to run through my back yard we would plant white pumpkins by them. when my parents told me they were getting divorced i ran away and laid down on the train tracks, waiting for a train. my dad came and took me home
kat
i see the railroad from my window
i see how the train goes by without me
i feel sad and lonely
titi
The railroad tracks stretched endlessly into the distance, meeting the horizon in the farthest reaches of our vision. I lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled, the smoke coming out with my visible breath in the cold air. Here, I felt peaceful. Here, we were alone. No one bothered us. No one stopped us. Here, we could be in love.
Emily
It was the place we always went to escape ourselves. The railroad showed us that there was someplace besides here, someplace that might be better, at least that the world wasn’t quite as small as everyone told us it was. We had been educated to believe that this was it, that all we would ever have was what was in sight. Did that mean we were raised to believe we owned everything we could see? But the railroad led out of sight, dispelling the lie. We could not own it because we did not know who else had tried.
Bridget
we stood by the railroad tracks. the dust he had kicked from his boots rising in a red plume in the late afternoon sun. we both knew we would not see each other again. I thanked him. As we shook hands I thought I saw the hint of a tear in his eye, but his hand was firm and strong. must be the dust, i thought. just dust.
The railroad stood lonely in the middle of the field, save the one equally lonely figure standing rod straight next to it. Tears running down his face, a passing train, and the railroad was lonelier yet.
Lexa
We walked alongside the railroad tracks and poured out our secrets with every step we took – away from what we were used to, away from “real life”. We picked a flower each and tossed it in the creek, sealing our promise to each other that what we talked about would never be mentioned for anyone else’s ears to hear. As corny as this sounds, this really did happen.
I walked down the tracks. The red balloon that was tied to my hand struggled to get free, just as I struggled with the knot keeping it here. The light, musty wind stirred my hair and sundress, and just as I got the knot loose, it lifted it up, never to be seen again.
The orphans gathered in the crowded train car for the marble tournament. They were playing for keeps. “Loser cleans the outhouses. Winner gets a second portion of dinner,” said Danny, the toughest orphan.
I felt helpless, useless…like the weight of the world was crushing the soft tissue of my shoulders into my bones and nothing I did helped. So I laid with my back pressed against the cold steel of the tracks and gazed up. Such beauty the dark sky held and all I wanted was to join the stars. I heard it before I saw it, before I felt it…the sweet sound of the rattling railroad. I was finally FREE!
The train crashed into the building. Explosion by explosion happened along the railroad and inside the building. People screamed and cried, but no one could do nothing. Fire rose up along everywhere; the buildings, the railroad, the people.
Marlee
The railroad track run behind my house. Just on the other side of the wimpy fence the landlord put in. It might keep a chicken in, if it was a fat chicken. The tracks always worried me, what with the kids being so young. I remember my own attaction to them when I was a young child.
Debbie
It always came back to the railroad. Stacy thought as she stood at the edge of the tracks. It had started here, not so very long ago, and here it would end. This town, this place, this life. It was always here.
Amanda
A railroad has trains that pass by everyday. Many people ride in trains. It’s an easy way to travel and doesn’t cost much.
I have had this come up a few times. Just watching the timer trail off into the distance like the tracks that one associates with a railroad. I’m going to need a dictionary for this site aren’t i?
The train sound wakend me as it roared past my motel room. The morning seemed calm until the train–I used to walk the railroad tracks as a little girl, never afraid, as if teasing the tracks to produce a train.
Laura Blair Edmondson
Railroads make me think. They’re one of those objects that you can stare at for hours and do nothing but think. From your perspective the go on forever, and so you think, maybe it does go on forever. Maybe that track never ends.
Julia
cars go down the street honking. the train pulls up as the cars cross and all die. the train can’t stop the tracks screech the railroad isn’t able to withstand the pressure everyone dies they’re all dead. the train is dented and stops. the end. or is it?
Grace
Tracking the tracks around Oregon might be an endless, or seemingly endless, adventure. They go through tunnels, along roads, through deep forests and giant mountains. The desert is crossed by them–through green, pink, sand, black, white, and a rainbow of colors.
Kinney Thiele
Railroad
Was just thinking about a train station I’ll be going to. There’s two main ones where I live. I still feel like the other one is “my” train station. The one I grew up with and always used. I liked it. Loved the station itself. Had good memories going in and out of there.
The one I’m going to soon… I don’t know… it’s different. Not “mine.” I wonder if, at this point, I’ve used it as much or more than the first one. I still don’t like it somehow. I feel stressed… saddened, in a way, when I’m there. I know where I’m going, it’s convenient in ways, and yet, I still don’t think of it as “my” station.
Noisy Quiet
I’ve been working on the railroad for 100 years. Being a fish it’s hard to do my job sometimes, but I make do. What do I do? I drive the trains. Hundreds of trains, every day. It’s like a circus, and I’m the train driver. Every once in a while I’ll see an actual clown crossing the tracks and run him over. It’s hard convincing the boss to let me drive the trains so frequently.
a train can take me away, but where could it take me where i could leave the burdens of my past life behind me? a fantasy place where time is of no essence and to do is a distant concept, whispers of a life long gone.
Kenny
There was once an ancient railroad that was rumoured to have magical properties of a kind that was seldom seen in all the world. People were anxious to use this railroad to allievieate their many problems and maladies, and soon the railroad was devoid of magic.
Kenny
the train sped past chkachkachkachka, like the last chance rolling away, leaving me here with no one to tell, no one to hear my pathetic self sorry complaints, or my tiny triumphs and small adventures that sometimes seem like mountains.
Travel over the country. Fields and forests flashing by. The rumble of the train over the tracks. Smoke flowing overhead. The tracks spearhead through mountains like the sharpest arrow. Bringing civilization to every end of the continent.
Melissa
The lingering sound in my mind isn’t tuned to its usual station (your voice). It’s a rattling and a shaking and…whistles. And oh no, it’s happening again. I can never escape that meddling conductor. I can never leave that ghost train behind. In my dreams I take you with me. Every time.
We walked along the tracks that day, kicking up gravel under our ratty old shoes, catching sand in our heels and between our fingers. We smiled, and laughed. The sun was setting a million miles away, but where we lived there was no end to the days. Summer was forever.
He walked down the tracks, yes it was illegal and some would call it stupid but he liked doing it. Was it really a crime when it’s what you enjoyed doing most in the world? Probably…but if you couldn’t walk it…why did they call it a railroad?
In the past 2 weeks or so there have been 3 teen deaths in my hometown. A few months ago, in a neighboring town, even more affluent, there was a similar trend. I think three suicides. Several of those kids laid down on train tracks and let themselves get run over. I can not even imagine watching the train come a smash me. Oh haha looks like I accidentally gave myself another minute. Anyway, i am so proud of my community for in this all happening, everyone has just began to express their love for anyone. I kind of hate that it takes something extraordinary for that to happen. Done.
Walking down a long and lonely railroad. I don’t bother looking behind me, I’d rather spend my time thinking about the future. And if I don’t see the train then I won’t feel a thing. I hope from track to track hoping that one day I’ll find you, coming the other way on a track looking for me
There’s nothing more lonely than the sound of the train at night. Freight trains only, never passenger trains after the sun has long since set. Trains coming from great distances and foreign places, a little bit of there passing through here. I feel I am the only one awake in the world to hear this train, sole witness to its homeless song.
I’ve been working on the railroad all the live long day. You know those childhood memories that are all haze? That song is intimately tied up in those memories. I remember the dance where you pretended to nail stakes into the ground and they children’s characters danced away.
i’ll never forget that movie. it was about someone who was killed on a railroad. it was beautiful. the huge, long lines that cover the dusty, unearthly terrain of australia. i say unearthly, because it’s hellish in its way, but at the same time, it’s the only earth of this country. dry, red and bleak
She crossed her fingers and wished for blue. Eyes clenched, she thought of blue birds and blue berries and the deep blue ocean. Anything blue. Sky blue, navy blue, aqua blue. Blue bonnet, blue curacao, blue … She thought of him walking away. She knew what he would think if it wasn’t blue.
A railroad is a way to escape. To run from your fears and to run to your hopes. I like railroads- I like watching them rush in front of me, eventually fading into the distance. Sometimes I feel like I just want to walk along a railroad. Just to see where it would take me. I would walk along it for hours. Days. Months. Years.
Trains drive on them. Wooden planks aross then. Rocks inbetween them. You can walk on them. Along the sides of roads. over roads. :) Fun to ride on.
Sometimes I go down to the railroads. Maybe I slap a cool penny right down on the tracks. I watch it flatten in like it’s nothing. What if that was me? Would I be flattened? What would it be like? Hopefully, I’m never in the place to find out.
When we walked across the railroad, it seemed as if we were on the right side but then the same things happened on the other side…didn’t it? It’s funny how we don’t know what we have until we change sides or go to other places. Appreciate what you have, ALWAYS!
documentary with hillary clinton they found two boys dead on the train tracks. the police and autopsy said they were killed by the train but clearly the bodies were shot in the head and one was beaten with the butt of a rifle. i went on some train tracks a few weeks ago with my friend kim, we decided to walk to her house after the brewer game and crossed a railroad. we sat on the back of one of the cars and drank some water before jumping down and venturing again. railroad tracks used to run through my back yard we would plant white pumpkins by them. when my parents told me they were getting divorced i ran away and laid down on the train tracks, waiting for a train. my dad came and took me home
i see the railroad from my window
i see how the train goes by without me
i feel sad and lonely
The railroad tracks stretched endlessly into the distance, meeting the horizon in the farthest reaches of our vision. I lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled, the smoke coming out with my visible breath in the cold air. Here, I felt peaceful. Here, we were alone. No one bothered us. No one stopped us. Here, we could be in love.
It was the place we always went to escape ourselves. The railroad showed us that there was someplace besides here, someplace that might be better, at least that the world wasn’t quite as small as everyone told us it was. We had been educated to believe that this was it, that all we would ever have was what was in sight. Did that mean we were raised to believe we owned everything we could see? But the railroad led out of sight, dispelling the lie. We could not own it because we did not know who else had tried.
we stood by the railroad tracks. the dust he had kicked from his boots rising in a red plume in the late afternoon sun. we both knew we would not see each other again. I thanked him. As we shook hands I thought I saw the hint of a tear in his eye, but his hand was firm and strong. must be the dust, i thought. just dust.
The railroad stood lonely in the middle of the field, save the one equally lonely figure standing rod straight next to it. Tears running down his face, a passing train, and the railroad was lonelier yet.
We walked alongside the railroad tracks and poured out our secrets with every step we took – away from what we were used to, away from “real life”. We picked a flower each and tossed it in the creek, sealing our promise to each other that what we talked about would never be mentioned for anyone else’s ears to hear. As corny as this sounds, this really did happen.
I walked down the tracks. The red balloon that was tied to my hand struggled to get free, just as I struggled with the knot keeping it here. The light, musty wind stirred my hair and sundress, and just as I got the knot loose, it lifted it up, never to be seen again.
The orphans gathered in the crowded train car for the marble tournament. They were playing for keeps. “Loser cleans the outhouses. Winner gets a second portion of dinner,” said Danny, the toughest orphan.
I felt helpless, useless…like the weight of the world was crushing the soft tissue of my shoulders into my bones and nothing I did helped. So I laid with my back pressed against the cold steel of the tracks and gazed up. Such beauty the dark sky held and all I wanted was to join the stars. I heard it before I saw it, before I felt it…the sweet sound of the rattling railroad. I was finally FREE!
The train crashed into the building. Explosion by explosion happened along the railroad and inside the building. People screamed and cried, but no one could do nothing. Fire rose up along everywhere; the buildings, the railroad, the people.
The railroad track run behind my house. Just on the other side of the wimpy fence the landlord put in. It might keep a chicken in, if it was a fat chicken. The tracks always worried me, what with the kids being so young. I remember my own attaction to them when I was a young child.
It always came back to the railroad. Stacy thought as she stood at the edge of the tracks. It had started here, not so very long ago, and here it would end. This town, this place, this life. It was always here.
A railroad has trains that pass by everyday. Many people ride in trains. It’s an easy way to travel and doesn’t cost much.
trains no longer race on railroads
they crawl and push
remembering decades past when they ruled the land
railroad
railroaD
RAILROAD
RAILROAD
RAILROAD]RAILROAD
RAILROADROADRAILROADRAILROADRAILROADRAILROADRAILROAD
I have had this come up a few times. Just watching the timer trail off into the distance like the tracks that one associates with a railroad. I’m going to need a dictionary for this site aren’t i?
The train sound wakend me as it roared past my motel room. The morning seemed calm until the train–I used to walk the railroad tracks as a little girl, never afraid, as if teasing the tracks to produce a train.
Railroads make me think. They’re one of those objects that you can stare at for hours and do nothing but think. From your perspective the go on forever, and so you think, maybe it does go on forever. Maybe that track never ends.
cars go down the street honking. the train pulls up as the cars cross and all die. the train can’t stop the tracks screech the railroad isn’t able to withstand the pressure everyone dies they’re all dead. the train is dented and stops. the end. or is it?
Tracking the tracks around Oregon might be an endless, or seemingly endless, adventure. They go through tunnels, along roads, through deep forests and giant mountains. The desert is crossed by them–through green, pink, sand, black, white, and a rainbow of colors.
Railroad
Was just thinking about a train station I’ll be going to. There’s two main ones where I live. I still feel like the other one is “my” train station. The one I grew up with and always used. I liked it. Loved the station itself. Had good memories going in and out of there.
The one I’m going to soon… I don’t know… it’s different. Not “mine.” I wonder if, at this point, I’ve used it as much or more than the first one. I still don’t like it somehow. I feel stressed… saddened, in a way, when I’m there. I know where I’m going, it’s convenient in ways, and yet, I still don’t think of it as “my” station.
I’ve been working on the railroad for 100 years. Being a fish it’s hard to do my job sometimes, but I make do. What do I do? I drive the trains. Hundreds of trains, every day. It’s like a circus, and I’m the train driver. Every once in a while I’ll see an actual clown crossing the tracks and run him over. It’s hard convincing the boss to let me drive the trains so frequently.
a train can take me away, but where could it take me where i could leave the burdens of my past life behind me? a fantasy place where time is of no essence and to do is a distant concept, whispers of a life long gone.
There was once an ancient railroad that was rumoured to have magical properties of a kind that was seldom seen in all the world. People were anxious to use this railroad to allievieate their many problems and maladies, and soon the railroad was devoid of magic.
the train sped past chkachkachkachka, like the last chance rolling away, leaving me here with no one to tell, no one to hear my pathetic self sorry complaints, or my tiny triumphs and small adventures that sometimes seem like mountains.
Travel over the country. Fields and forests flashing by. The rumble of the train over the tracks. Smoke flowing overhead. The tracks spearhead through mountains like the sharpest arrow. Bringing civilization to every end of the continent.
The lingering sound in my mind isn’t tuned to its usual station (your voice). It’s a rattling and a shaking and…whistles. And oh no, it’s happening again. I can never escape that meddling conductor. I can never leave that ghost train behind. In my dreams I take you with me. Every time.
We walked along the tracks that day, kicking up gravel under our ratty old shoes, catching sand in our heels and between our fingers. We smiled, and laughed. The sun was setting a million miles away, but where we lived there was no end to the days. Summer was forever.