Okay. I am a lover of travel. I have actually been on a passenger train that was NOT Amtrak (one departing from this town when I was about 8 and my grandmother said she didn't think there would be passenger trains like that one in the future... she was right!). I have been on lots of planes, from a 2-passenger to a 747 jumbo jet. Obviously I have been in automobiles since I was licensed at the age of 15 (which seems insane now!). I love hearing the distant sound of a train whistle. I would park at the end of a runway all day to watch planes arrive and depart. I guess I'm a travel junkie.
Let's talk about trains. The town's first railroad was the Pittsburgh & Gulf in 1897 which was later renamed the Kansas City Southern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeRidder,_Louisiana). If you want a peek at the original train station, check out the Beauregard Parish Museum which originally served travelers heading north or south on the rails. Yep, that's the place my grandmother took me to purchase our tickets to head north to Shreveport where we spent the night in a hotel and returned by train the next day! It was VERY exciting!!
So... why am I rambling on about this mode of travel? Because, dear friends... the tracks remain and are quite active. While Amtrak does not run on this particular rail line, there are freight trains running through town... ALL... DAY... AND... NIGHT... LONG!!!!! There are numerous crossings including the two one-way runs through town where traffic comes to a halt and backs up for a couple of blocks waiting for these 100+ car trains to clear the tracks. Remember the first paragraph? That "distant sound of a train whistle" I mentioned I loved? Well, with the heavy humidity that is standard here and with the house I am in at a slightly higher elevation than the tracks, the whistles sound as if they are in the BACK YARD instead of approximately 1.5 miles away!!! I have now become familiar with the individual whistles and their approximate times to run through town. There are a couple of engineers who apparently take a rather cruel and sadistic pleasure in hanging on that whistle for a VERY extended time as they run through the town at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. Pity the folks who actually live across the street from the tracks.
At any rate... if any of you are railroad junkies, let me know. I will try to record the nearly constant whistles for you which, I assure you, will cure you of your addiction. Really. I say this with complete faith you will be cured.
Until the next fascinating blog...
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