There is something about the sound of a train whistle at night that fuels my imagination. Even today, when I am up early and hear a passenger train moving past my home in Camden, SC. I wonder about the people on-board and where they might be going. I remember as a kid, walking along tracks in Minnesota, and trying to imagine where they ended.  

The train’s, the Silver Star and Silver Meteor that runs from NY to Miami conjures up images of stream-line trains moving through the night against the backdrop of millions of stars emitting a silvery light. 

Despite my fascination with trains, I didn’t take my first official trip on the rails until later in life. I remember standing on the platform at 3:00 AM at Columbia Station, waiting for the train that would take me to Tampa, Florida. The platform, a hundred feet or so long, had a pitched roof supported by metal poles and lamps spaced every dozen feet illuminating small pools of light along its length.

When the train arrived, it rolled in quietly, the only sound from its metal wheels emitting a scraping sound against the rails. The city, asleep, with its darkened neighborhoods and shuttered businesses, never noticed its arrival or departure.

Once settled in my seat, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind; I wanted to see Columbia from this new perspective, and was frustrated by the darkness of a moonless night. I was only able to guess at the general area in which we traveled, and it was two long hours before dawn unveiled the passing countryside.  

Leaving my seat to find the dining car, I passed sleeping passengers along the way. In the space between cars, you get a better sense of movement as the small walkways mimic fluctuations in the rails, and without insulated walls, the sound of rushing air unmuted.

 The dining car, empty of passengers when I arrived, consisted of a small counter where a railroad employee busied himself with stocking the shelves. Purchasing a sweet roll and coffee, I sat in the deserted car watching an orange-red sunrise, its fiery coloration promising steamy temperatures for the day.

It was interesting to see small towns along the route. It would seem efforts to make a first impression focused mainly on car travel—the train route, offering a different view, where the sins of too much stuff were piled unceremoniously behind businesses. The dumping of trash along the tracks near towns contributed to a feeling of decline.

When stopping to pick up new passengers, smokers stepped down from their cars and huddled near the tracks feeding their addiction.

Arriving in Tampa, the engineer performed a lengthy backing maneuver into the station. The Tampa Station house beautifully restored fit perfectly into the old cigar district of Ybor City.

My daughter, her husband, and grandson who picked me up, questioned the sanity of spending an additional three hours traveling by rail as opposed to driving, and as I left the station, glancing down the tracks I had yet to travel, I couldn’t help wondering where they might go.