There is a certain magnificence in a Texas twilight, in the ripple of time on a placid river, the cool spring waters rolling silently and meeting in a stalemate with the sweltering summer temperatures, and in doing so keeping at bay the misery index and creating a copse of riverside pleasantness from which one might enjoy the dusk; standing as witness to a sun teetering on the brink and finally succumbing to inevitability behind the Balcones Escarpment, the death throes of the day reaching out, probing in desperation for the cloud tops cast against the ever-deepening blue.

It is a simple slice of evening, garnished with the ringing of bells and a sprig of sycamore, all topped with the inimitable rumbling of horsepower and tonnage in motion.

In all that, wrapped within an invisible and aromatic cloud of rust and dust and creosote and diesel exhaust that wafts down through the ever-dimming Texas evening and gently assaults our senses, lies the ability to momentarily transcend the trappings of life and modern society and conjure up great memories from a time long before we cared about rivets and the ability to record just how many of them there are.

And in that is a reminder of just why we came here in the first place---

There is sheer joy in the simple act of watching a train.


Rick Malo©2019


At 7:56 pm on August 14th, 2019, we’re in San Marcos, Texas as a freight rumbles across the San Marcos river and rolls north on Main Track 1 of Union Pacific’s Austin Subdivision.

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