Trains

I hate trains. The town I live in is located outside of Chicago. Intersecting the town is the nation's main rail line going west. Multiple times per day, commuter trains and freight trains travel the line, to and fro. Traffic in my town, and countless others dotting the line along the way, are paralyzed when the trains come through. Most of the towns have roads crossing the tracks---no bridges over them or viaducts under them.

It is when these frequent trains come through and I am in my car or on my scooter or walking on foot and I want to cross the tracks that I really start gnashing my teeth. The trains literally paralyze society, bringing everything on both sides of the tracks to a standstill. And there I sit, with everyone else, twiddling our thumbs as this lumbering temporary wall has appeared in front of us.

I can think of no other situation where society is legally allowed to be paralyzed like this. We are often informed about statistics that show that people spend X amount of hours in their lives commuting to work. I guess waiting for the train at a M-F'n crossing falls into that category.

This isn't new information, so this blog is nothing but my venting about it. When I sit waiting at a crossing, I sometimes fantasize. I think about what would happen if I had the legal right to paralyze society, too. Would I travel down a busy highway and then just decide to stop and pull out a lawn chair and sit in the middle of the road, making all traffic around me stop until I decided to get back in my car and go? Would I spot an ambulance speeding to a hospital and then decide, "Hold on, you can't pass here, I've decided to fly this kite from this location right here in the road"? I think you get my point. Man, I really hate trains.