One Night

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One Night
By Brent Kneebush

The night is cool and crisp as you sit outside gazing at the stars, the only sounds
are the chirping of crickets and the hum of the occasional car. You check your watch; it's 1:03 AM.
You wonder why any person in their right mind would be doing what
you're doing now. Your mind begins to wander as you
think back, recounting your first experiences with what you love so much. A Christmas
morning and a present under the tree comes to mind, then sitting in
a car, barely old enough to say your name, watching the biggest thing you had ever seen
in all your life zoom past in a blur of flashing silver and black. You remember trips to
Galesburg, Strasburg , Altoona, Union and countless other places where hidden treasures
abound at every turn. You remember a return trip from Denver in streamlined comfort.
All of a sudden the sound of a clearly computerized voice breaks your chain of
thought and you look up just as the lights you've been sitting next to flash from dark to
green and red. Clearly audible now is the sound of nearly 14,000 hp belting out a chorus
like no other in the world, then in a deafening roar a C40-8W, an SD60I, and two
SD40-2's zoom by trailing a seemingly endless tail of UPS trailers punctuated with a
flashing red light. Then, as soon as it started it's over and your thoughts return to Lionel
trains, N&W 1218, Baldwins, EMD's, GE's, The Pennsy, The 20th Century Limited, and
the Zephyrs, that is until another Trail Van Train shatters the small-town quiet of Bryan,
Ohio.

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