Rails in Rust and Grass

Facebook gallery is here.

As noted elsewhere I have a fascination with old rail lines - spikes, rails, bridges, ladders, engines and other detritus.

My favorite summer job was in the 1975 where I supported myself in marching with the Valiant Knights of Enid, OK by working for the local Kiwanis club.  

My task was to help rebuild a huge miniature railroad in Meadowlake Park in the South of Enid.  The line had been washed away by a flood the Summer before and our job was to restore it.

The man in charge was a crusty old ex-railman named Bill Haney.  You could tell he had worked his way around the West by swinging a sledge and had the work ethic of a man whose paycheck grew based on how much steel he laid in the course of a day.

We didn't stand around a lot.

The neat thing was Bill's insistence that we make it "look pretty" - that just getting the job done shouldn't be enough.  There was more to this than the paycheck.  Or, more precisely, the cash he doled out at the end of each day.  

Now that I think of it it strikes me that maybe he was trying to teach us something, pass on wisdom as an elder - or a father - conscious or not. I never heard that there was a "Mrs. Bill Haney" - I'm sure there probably was and I'm equally sure that it's no damned business of mine.

Still, he made it a point to give us a chance to do really good work.  Maybe I learned more from that job than I thought.  The Valiant Knights won second place in the 1975 VFW nationals in LA that year, though everyone else was at DCI in Philadelphia, the first PBS broadcast - but my first thought, when my parents came to collect me afterwards, was to take them to ride on that silly train.

I still think well of the experience - a Google satellite photo is here.  You can just make out the train line.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the fascination with trains I've had since childhood.  

I suppose it all served to move me to head down to the Fore River waterfront - the part along Commercial Street that has no lobster pounds, no boat chandleries, no antique shops - the part that has pretty much nothing but scrub growth and rusting metal left from it's days as a switching yard for the Grand Trunk Railroad.

A warm day, a very clear day.  The railyard lies below the level of Commercial Street, next to the river.  One rusted spur leads to a gas tank farm but I don't see that it's been used in a long, long time.  Looking close at the rails will show one set with just a touch less rust.  Just a touch.

You can see where multiple lines used to be.  Certain sections twist and turn - one striking section is a series of "S" curves.  

The yard expands out for a quarter-mile - then condenses again, down by the Merril Docks, heading under Route One and the Veteran's Bridge.  The bridge pilings are covered in impressive graffiti - lost declarative artworks seen only by other taggers, wharf rats and the occasional nosy-parker with a camera and a free afternoon.

I wonder at how much traffic those lines must have carried - they represent a substantial infrastructural investment.  And now they are falling to ruin - I'd say "seed" if they weren't all made of cast steel.

Set aside the question of what we have gained or lost by industrialization.  Just think about the good work of the ones who laid that rail, who made it "look pretty".

I wonder at what Bill Haney would have said about it.