Friday, October 29, 2004, 8:22am
Friday, October 29, 2004, 8:22am
On approach to Framingham Station we are arriving inbound along the outbound tracks. Apparently no one forewarned Frank who storms past my seat, and judging by harried would-be passengers I see scrambling through the station cross-over tower, nobody told them as well.
From inside the nearest vestibule Frank rips opens one of the north side entrance doors before popping its floor panel to reveal metal stairs – done all in one conjoined and cacophonous ZIP-BAM-click-SLAM – a sound deafening at first, then receding in volume as the frantic ritual repeats and shifts to distant carriages.
At the very least our wrong-side track arrival granted a better look at the Winter Street bridge abutment. When General Motors raised this bridge, project engineers must have worried about the higher center of gravity and by bolting the abutment stones together I suspect they were hoping to improve the odds. On first inspection it seems like a bit of overkill because if we ever felt an earthquake strong enough to challenge the structural integrity of this bridge I doubt it would matter much in the grander scheme of events with most nearby buildings taller than two stories lying in ruins.
But they weren’t chasing windmills. New England does experience damaging earthquakes several times a century on average. One recorded in colonial times is estimated at magnitude 6.5 – strong enough to topple chimneys on Beacon Hill.
Notwithstanding the storming and scrambling of conductors and Boston-bound passengers, I’ve had plenty of time to write, edit, and rewrite the last few paragraphs without moving an inch closer to to the city. Something has really gummed up the works this morning, and now finally underway we begin to collect the usual crowd plus those normally waiting for the local train to follow.
Frank attempts to clarify the situation…
“Folks, once again this is the T512 train – which is the express train – not the local. An outbound train was delayed due to switching problems and we are running late. This train will be running express to Back Bay after Wellesley Farms. We apologize for the delay.”
I see nobody leaving, so apparently we’re all heading for Boston – though not very quickly. Through Wellesley we linger and lurch in a Twilight Zone of glacial progress losing ground to thick storm clouds gaining on us from the west. At Ashland I could see those same clouds looming on the distant horizon, and evidently they are rolling fast, because we’re averaging at least 20mph – and that should be plenty fast to out-run ordinary weather.
With a bit of express speed we begin to overtake clear skies once more – soon reaching the storm front slicing straight overhead southeast to northwest. Clouds to the south continue to block the rising mid-autumn sun until it finally overtakes high cirrus in full retreat. Soon through blazing daylight our train races alongside the Pike with looming weather in our wake betrayed only by eastbound trucks and autos with their headlights foreshadowing the darkness to come.
Our express run from Wellesley Farms to Back Bay got underway sooner than I expected placing us only 20 minutes late by the posted schedule even if it feels a lot later by my internal clock. The clouds were gaining, and then seemed to be in full retreat – but in reality the train has made wildly varying progress while the clouds advanced at a continuous pace.
Such wildly differing visualizations can’t both be true. Or maybe they can, depending on where we place the center of our universe.
Beneath the concrete pillar forest at I-93, a state trooper blocks eastbound traffic at the entrance to the Mass Pike tunnel. Soon two guys in white hard hats and fading orange safety vests appear in the mouth of the maw. The trooper waves the road traffic column ahead – but the drivers do not advance, and only after vehement persuasion from the trooper do I see the first cars and trucks hesitantly inching ahead one-by-one. From his perspective, the frustrated trooper sees only the road – wide open and clear to pass – whereas the cautious drivers see what I see – those two guys in hardhats scurrying for their lives.
As our train pulls away from these events and makes its sweeping left turn into South Station, I am left grasping at the higher meaning.
