Early Morning, East of Versailles, Ohio / Photo by Richard Yost – Editing by John Fraim
Reborn / Colin Stetson (From the movie Hereditary)
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John Fraim
What could be more iconic than American railroad tracks. The tracks above fade into the eastern horizon. Towards Columbus, Ohio where my friend Rich took this photo while heading back to Columbus after a few days of work on the road in Indiana and Illinois. Railraod tracks and trains. Such a large part of the childhood memories of my generation. And older generations before mine.
There was a common sense of practicality to steel rails that carry the most powerful machines and all the products they bring around the nation. There is the work from the west east the east to the west and their meeting. I looked at the photos of the meeting of the two railroad companies when I was a boy. On May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met at Promontory Summit, Utah, driving a Golden Spike to mark the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and in the process, uniting a nation from east to west.
It was the symbol of so much unity to me. A uniting – not of north and south – but of east and the west. That particular day in Promotory Summit, Utah. May 10, 1869. Of course there is the economic proposition of railroads that they could carry far more products for the cost than trucks. Besides, there really were no highways at the time of the first railroads. But more than anything else, I recall looking at the photos taken that day and thinking that this symbolized the meeting of America’s West and East. What a great thing this would be I thought.
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But more than these business justifications for railroads, I think there is a symbolic significance of railroads in America. Certainly the age of steel in America is related to the growth of American railroads. Great rails of steel. Carrying great machines of steel over them. The most powerful machines in the world traveling on these rails. Delivering products and (once) people all over America.
I’ve walked along a number of railroad tracks during my life. Some were mainline tracks. Others, branch lines usually made into bike and walking trails. The straight mainline tracks elevated by gravel was always an exciting adventure for me and a some friends.
Walking the mainline tracks (as in Rich’s photo above) was always the most interesting of my “track walking” experiences over the years. Mainline tracks headed straight into the distant horizon. Any deviation in the closest distance to their distinations had to be accounted for. Either dug through via tunnels or blasted through areas or bridges built. Mainline tracks knew where they were going. But the great railroad barons argued about where the lines were going. Many won or lost fortunes in the railroad industry.
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What a change our world is in today from the years railroads and steel dominated as the greatest use resources of our culture. With the dominance of the Internet and software today, we have gone from a culture of weight to one of lightness. Extreme weight to extreme lightness.
I’m not concerned if culture points its brief attention span towards my way. And then away. Like the brief illumination from the revolving light of a lighthouse.
Something that concers me – though – is memories of the railroads and this system that built Amerca seem to be no nowhere out there these days. Yeah, I know. I expect too much these days.
Time Seems Messed Up / Richard Yost – Versailles, Ohio
Time seems messed up right now. Too much information happening at once. Alvin Toffler wrote about this trend almost fifty years ago in a book called Future Shock. Yet time today is different today than it has been before. Of course it always is. But this time is different. Hard to describe.
For one thing, there seem no “rails” on anything anymore.
The imprints of software and the modern world is a soft imprint compared to the heavy imprint of the age of trains and rails and locomotives. But this conflict does’t seem much to me. In a sense, it’s the way Congress members act towards each other.
And this war with Iran.
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How is it really going?
In some ways, I wish it was the time of the great railroads – again – and the great mailines across the nation. The double tracks. Gleaming in the sun. Going somewhere. With an assuredness to them. The nation has become a bunch of branch lines off the mainlines of the early railroads that connected important places. Just like the various disciplines today. Information becoming smaller and smaller, branchlines off major ideas of knowledge.
Where are we heading?
It seems to me, today is one of those times better to approach as a question rather than an answer.
After all, the rails seem gone and eveything running amuck off the rails.