Senior Stories: Of Trains and Travel
Tales with Meaning Written by Atherton Residents

By John Heck, Atherton Resident Since 1999

At the first wail of the train’s mighty whistle, I dropped what I was doing and ran to sit on the very last blade of grass separating my yard from the railroad tracks. I strained to look down the twin silvery rails, held firmly in place by the creosote-soaked, wooden ties to catch the first glimpse of the smoke-belching, shiny, black steam engine pulling its seemingly endless string of box cars, tankers, and flatcars loaded with all kinds of exciting things from far off places.

As the train drew closer, the whistle shrilled ever louder, the ground shook as its six–driver, wheel, engine, and coal tender flashed by me…I was covered in a cloud of steam and cinder specks. Suddenly, my vision cleared. Before me was the engineer sitting high up in the cab while controlling a massive, snorting behemoth on its journey through my boyhood hometown of Altona, Illinois.

As I watched the boxcars flashing by, with their various company logos painted on the sides, occasionally I would see a lone hobo sitting in an open doorway, catching free ride to who knows where? Often I wondered idly just where he, or this train, was going?

Finally, the caboose at the end of the long train passed. I watched longingly as it faded into the distance. I promised myself that someday, I too would leave my small town of Altona, and travel either direction those train tracks behind my house led. I would go to far away places where those trains went…maybe even farther…and I did!