Thursday, September 30, 2004, 8:18am
Thursday, September 30, 2004, 8:18am
Norm has once again placed a colored seat tag before I can locate my September rail pass. This is the last day I can use this pass and thereafter it’s worth about five bucks towards my car insurance bill if I can produce eleven of these in a calendar year. Tonight I’ll add this to the growing pile.
I ride the rails ten thousand miles a year and my car sits in the driveway almost entirely unused as a result. So I’m pretty sure I’m reducing the risk of a car accident by more than fifty dollars. But at least it’s something.
At Framingham a familiar woman joins the conducting crew. Taking over the two middle cars, she inspects my seat tag then places it back into the same seat top loop upside-down, converting the tag to her own tracking code.
Through an inordinately clean window this morning I see the results of dry air that blew into New England yesterday, settling into a high pressure calm where just a leaf or two acknowledges a rare wisp of motion. The dampness of the recent rain still shows on the exposed earth and as the sun warms the land I see fair weather clouds billowing in a view provided by the open expanse of Lake Cochituate.
At Natick Station I pause to study the ‘Irish’ built retaining walls. From foundation to capstones I estimate twenty feet at least. On the south-facing wall small sumacs, green grass, and other random vegetation jut from weakening mortar joins making a go at life that seems precarious at best. But there is sunlight here and rainwater must work its way into the cracks and crags somehow.
From here we roll aboard a train only moderately full, squealing to a stop at Wellesley Square, then grinding to halt at Wellesley Hills, one and two stops past those stone-bound sumacs. Our next and final boarding stop happens at Wellesley Farms and thereafter we won’t be stopping again until the mass exodus at Back Bay Station. That is what lies far ahead. For now there’s only a short hop from here to “the farms” as Norm will often announce it. Maybe I’ll get to keep this two-seater to myself the whole way into Boston.
Beyond the Farms east of Route 128 we roll fast through open spaces where trees are sparse and buildings low. The woman conductor has somehow decoded the unmoved ticket slip for the seat ahead of me and collects money from a new passenger. She then continues along the aisle reaching left and right to pluck tags from their seat loops signaling the end of the ticketing process. From this ritual I relax a bit as indeed I’ll have this seat all to myself. It is only a minor inconvenience to share a seat, but I’ll gladly accept the positive swings of happenstance when they do arrive.
As we roll closer to the common and unique motifs of Boston I consider the red bricks I see in the millions from just about any view of the city. Red clay is not native to eastern Massachusetts so these bricks had to travel a fair distance – the closest source being the iron-rich Triassic clays of the Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River from Amherst past Hartford to the south. Beyond traditional color and aesthetics the rust-red bricks also nicely hide stains from old ironwork and fire escapes.
Stopping below I-93, I see a massive machine used to position equally massive pre-stressed concrete overpass sections for an access ramp still under construction. From a Big Dig tour I learned how these concrete sections are hollow to reduce weight and increase surface area for added strength. Steel rods pass through from end to end tightened like a strip of piano strings. The force of this tension compresses the concrete and preloads the structure against the weight and shock of heavy car and truck traffic overhead. Like many unseen features of a design, the steel rods are the real magic.
Okay, maybe that isn’t so marvelous, and in reality I should be more amazed by the Styrofoam pillar footings under many of the main supports which keep these pillars from sinking. But I’ll have to write about that some other time.
South Station has arrived and I must depart.
