Friday, September 24, 2004, 5:55pm
Friday, September 24, 2004, 5:55pm
Another workweek ends near the tail end of this 6:05pm Worcester Express as I listen to a shortened shorthand from the South Station track announcers. Lately they’ve been using the word “Train” for all departures instead of specifying “Express” or “Local” – and it is the wiser choice considering how often they’ve been wrong lately. Yet even if calling something the “such-and-such Train” does make sense, I’d still rather they got the distinctions correct instead of abandoning the elegance of the older format.
Prior to departure I hear an MBTA radio chattering from a nearby vestibule where the engineer normally works the controls of an inbound train. I’m guessing the speaker volume can be turned down, but like the world of Orwell’s 1984, it can never be completely switched off. Each conductor wears a portable radio as well and whether planned or otherwise we are often treated to messages ranging from the condition of the rails to guesswork on the location of some trespasser wandering naked through railroad property.
Just prior to departure I see would-be passengers stepping through the common area of this double-decker down steps and then along this lower-level aisle past my single seat heading further up the train. When I concentrate I can also hear the metallic clanking of high-heal shoes trekking along the upper cabin floor as well – one of many ordinary sounds that I’ve learned to ignore. Last year when I recorded these trains for game design sound effects, I was amazed to notice those radios and the clanking of shoes that had long since melted into the unobserved cacophony. There is no such thing as quiet aboard these trains and the nearest approach to quiet is a level of background noise where normal conversation is still possible. Quiet might arrive after the trains are parked for the night, when the ventilation fans are switched off, the diesel motors shut down, and once the nameless worker bees have collected discarded newspapers, vacuumed ticket chad, and washed these windows as best they can. But I doubt it is ever quiet even then because rail yards are rarely peaceful places at any time of day or night.
I feel an emergence of melancholy as we crawl west through the Back Bay Tunnel. Then I notice the train listing to the right like a ship with too much cargo placed to starboard in a way I’d never noticed. There are at least six or eight tracks leading into this tunnel and just now I sense a severe turn as we merge from an outlying track number – hopefully to find the rails of the Worcester Line leading west alongside the Mass Pike. Perhaps the melancholy was a the feeling of being off-course, and if so, I sense this in a deeper way beyond the twisting travails of the Worcester Express.
The light towers at Fenway Park are lit as we pass an inbound train pulling into Yawkey Station to disgorge baseball fans. Tonight they have come to see the battle of our local team versus what is often called the Evil Empire in these parts – the New York Yankees. Pedro Martinez is pitching for the Red Sox and there is anxiety in the newspapers about his last outing in New York where the Bronx Bombers pounded him for something like eight runs. Wadda’ya do when your ace is on the ropes? Who is left to rescue your dignity then?
“…kou… thank you .. kou … click, click, clickity-click, click… that’s six dollars please…” William is making his rounds working the cabin front to back. After Back Bay almost nobody boards these homeward commuter trains, so when reaching the tail end of this very last car William’s ticket-collecting is just about done. For the next hour he’ll mostly leave the train at each station stop to stand at the base of the rearmost exit as a temporary welcoming party for those of us back here calling it a night. Thereafter he’ll signal the engineer far ahead with his hand or sometimes with his hat, and when the winter darkness sets in for real, he’ll aim the beam of a small plastic flashlight in the general direction of the locomotive – all to say that everyone is aboard who is staying aboard and everyone who is leaving has already left. A hundred and seventy years ago the old time conductors used whale oil lamps, yet in all other respects nothing has changed about this ritual.
The evening non-stop dash from Back Bay to West Natick takes about 25 minutes – the longest uninterrupted segment of my weekday commute. It isn’t quite like the long spaces of the high-speed Acela train down to Washington, and nothing like the Franz Schubert Express from Zurich to Vienna with only a handful of stops in between. But it is a nice long ride nonetheless and the continuous flow of scenery helps to create a peaceful sense of distance between work and home.
Twilight fades on approach to Framingham Station and there can be little doubt about the change of seasons. In Ashland it will be mostly dark by the time I walk the Pleasant Street sidewalks, and by then most of the colors will be too dark to see. If that happens I may not even notice that I’ve become color blind with night vision except for brightly colored tail lights and the few spots of well-lit terrain.
