Train, train, carry me back ...

Awake at 2:40 am, struggling to go back to sleep, not succeeding … eventually I give up, just lay there in the early morning dark, eyes still closed but wide awake, and listening … the air conditioner shuts off, followed by perfect quiet … a car sighs past on the highway … then it is quiet again … then, far away on McNeil Road, I hear the horn blast of a train and the long rumbling down the track … I know the route of that train, know it very well … it is an old route … I trace the route in my sleepless mind … it begins in San Antonio, crosses the Guadalupe River … moves north through San Marcos into South Austin … this is where I would hear the trains at night from my South First apartment in the late ‘90s … the track moves north through town, crosses Oltorf Street, stopping traffic both ways, crosses the bridge over Barton Springs Road and Town Lake … then turns west and joins MoPac Expressway … MoPac, as in Missouri-Pacific … it was here in the late ‘70s, when I lived on Lake Austin Boulevard that I would hear the trains at night ... and these days I see them as I drove to and from work, mostly they are freight trains but sometimes it is the Amtrak passenger train, the Texas Eagle ... I know this route well, very well ... the track moves straight up the middle of MoPac, heading north … at Anderson Lane, it veers slightly eastward, passing under the northbound lanes of MoPac, then runs parallel to MoPac for awhile before veering back under MoPac and continuing on to McNeil Road, where I hear the train now, eyes closed but awake, in the early morning dark … I know this route well … the track turns east at McNeil, heading into Round Rock, then runs parallel to Highway 79, still heading east … this is where I would hear the trains at night from my backyard in the late ‘80s and mid-‘90s … I know this route well, very well … the track stays with Highway 79 through Hutto, then Taylor … then cuts north through farmland northward to Granger and Temple … turns west, crossing under I-35 … turns north, passing west of Waco … crosses the Brazos River … I know this route well … continues north to Cleburne … Cleburne, where I heard the trains at night in the mid-‘60s, lying awake on my cot on the back porch of the old house on North Main … then the track passes under the viaduct on the north side of Cleburne, still heading north till it comes to Fort Worth, where it meets the Texas & Pacific Depot and heads east out of town … it was on the east side of Fort Worth in the mid-‘50s that I would hear the trains at night just a few houses away as they passed by our street, Newark Avenue … this was before Amtrak, before the Texas Eagle … in those days it was the Texas Chief ... I remember it well … moving out of Fort Worth and continuing east, the track passes through Handley, then straight through the heart of Arlington, where in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s I saw hoboes riding the freights … then at Dallas the track crosses the Trinity River, turns north at the Triple Underpass, circles behind the Grassy Knoll and Texas Schoolbook Depository and on the north side of town turns east, Mineola-bound … after Mineola, it passes through Longview, then Marshall, then Texarkana, and keeps on going to the larger world outside Texas: through Little Rock, St. Louis, and finally stops in Chicago … I know the route well, very well ... in the deepest dark of the morning, I know it well, and the train rumbles on, lulling me finally back to sleep, back to sleep, carrying me back, carrying me back … Texas Eagle … Texas Chief, rumbling in the night … train, train, carry me back …