2005 Roquillo Award Winner

Abandoned
John Twork

June 18, 1987 was the last time that a locomotive pulled a train of freight cars on the tracks that run behind my office. After the train had rumbled by for one final time, the railroad abandoned the route and allowed nature to take over the rails. Today, the tracks are still there, but nobody notices them; hidden away beneath the weeds and prairie grass, they wait patiently for a train that is not coming back.

I remember watching that faded Illinois Central orange and white diesel locomotive slowly move along the tracks out of town with a twenty car train of empty rusted out boxcars. That was six months after the General Electric plant closed, and thus the railroad had no reason to run a line through our town anymore. As the train faded into the late afternoon sun, I felt as though a part of me was also departing.

Everyone said that I was just like my grandfather. We both had a love for trains. That was fitting for my grandfather because he was a conductor on the Illinois Central Railroad. I remember watching with amazement when he climbed aboard a massive orange and brown passenger car and hollered, “All aboard,” to the engineer. As the train began to move he would stay in the doorway of the car smiling at me, tip his conductors cap and wink. I watched that train until it became a speck and finally disappeared into the horizon. I wished that I could ride with grandfather on just one of his railroad adventures.

Grandfather passed away when I was only eight years old. It was difficult for me to accept that I would never hear him say “All aboard,” again or see him wink at me as he leisurely rode the train into the sunset. I felt an emptiness in my stomach, an emptiness that has never gone away.
My parents discouraged me from going into any kind of blue-collar labor, including working on the railroad. My father had been laid off from the General Electric factory when it began to downsize in the 1970’s, so he was determined that I would have a secure office job for my entire life.

“You need to focus on an education instead of trains,” said my mother. “I want you to have a good life, and working on the railroad is not going to make you happy.”
I left town and attended a business college. I didn’t enjoy it, but at least my parents were pleased because I was making something out of my life. When I came back home, I began selling insurance independently. Business was very good, and I made a sizeable profit. My parents were happy for me, but I was not. I had money, but a part of me was missing.
I did not have time or energy to commit to a relationship with a woman, and my parents were so interested in my newly earned money that I couldn’t have a normal relationship with them either. I missed my grandfather.

After the railroad abandoned the line, they sold the passenger depot near the outskirts of town by the old factory. I bought it impulsively for more money than it was probably worth. Yet, I felt that it was necessary for me to have that depot. I spent all my free-time over the next year fixing the place up and turning it into my insurance office. Most people didn’t understand why I wanted the place as my office since it was far away from the popular downtown business district. But, most people don’t understand me.

I hung a black and white picture of my grandfather on the wall next to the old timetable in the depot. It made me feel more complete, as though he was in the room with me waiting for the next train to depart.

I decided to start walking along the abandoned railroad tracks every day for exercise and emotional comfort. Around noon, I would stop working and take a leisurely walk about a mile down the tracks into the country and back. When I walked down the abandoned line I felt like I was finally a part of something, and I had a purpose in life. I felt like I was riding in that orange and brown passenger car with my grandfather.

There was a day that I was feeling especially alone in the world. I stopped working at ten in the morning and started my walk down the tracks. After a mile of trudging through the weeds and grass, I decided not to turn around. I kept going on tracks that I had never been on during my previous walks. I walked by dismantled cross bucks that sat in a neat pile with the faded black lettering ‘RAILROAD CROSSING,’ visible through the weeds. I walked past a rusty signal that lay broken in the prairie grass by the side of the roadbed. I walked over a metal bridge that still held the unused rails strongly above a small creek that ran beneath it. Then the scenery changed.

The tracks sharply curved from the open country landscape into a dark, wooded area where weeds, trees, and bushes had almost completely overtaken the rails. A thin layer of fog began to consume the woods as I journeyed further along the rails. I started to hear the sound of trickling water, and the fog intensified. I kept walking.

The sound of the water grew loud as I walked further into the fog. And then I saw the outline of something amazing. Directly in front of me was a magnificent wooden trestle bridge that held the tracks high above a river that ran through the woods. I paused to marvel at the beauty of the water running underneath the old trestle.

I thought about turning back for my office, but something made me want to keep going. I planted my feet on the first plank of wood and began walking. Slowly, I walked across the trestle, watching the river flow swiftly beneath me. The fog was very thick as I walked further out onto the bridge. And then, I couldn’t see anything. I stopped walking.

The rails, the trestle, and the river were gone. The fog dissolved into white light as I reached out for my grandfather’s hand. He tipped his cap and winked at me as he hollered, “All aboard!”