Once Upon A Train

This song is about a time I hopped a freight train and almost died.

That might be a little melodramatic but it was pretty scary.

I used to hop freights as a means of getting from the mountains in Skykomish, WA west to Everett, WA quite a bit. I had friends who had ridden the trains east through the 7.8 mile Cascade tunnel that went through the mountains. It is a 20 minute ride of dark and hot diesel fumes.

One day, I was playing basketball in the Forest Service compound in Skykomish with a friend when we heard a train whistle, we looked at each other and said, “let’s go”. We didn’t know if the train was going west or east but we were going to hop it and get out of town. We grabbed our go-bags and ran to the tracks. We didn’t have to run, the train sat there for a good half hour before it took off, east.

We had plenty of time to pick and choose what kind of train car we wanted to be on. While walking along the train we saw three of our friends in a box car, so we joined them.

The train took off and we went through the tunnel and it was as bad as I had heard, at one time I got a little anxious for a good clean deep breath, so I took a deep breath which was not clean but terrible. It took me a while to get my breathing under control, taking small breaths.

The train stopped in Leavenworth, a small Bavarian-styled town in the Cascades, we walked into town and had a pizza then walked back to the train tracks and when we got there a train was heading west. We only had time to jump on the moving train onto a flat car behind four engines. I thought, this will be good, the fumes and heat will just go around us, we will be in some kind of eddy. Nope. There are three small tunnels before you hit the big one and the heat and fumes were thick. We knew we had to get away from the engines so we climbed back six cars to a grain car and hunkered down there.

Years ago I took a writing class and wrote about this story as an essay, I wish I still had it. Years later I was reading about Ezra Pound, and I liked the way he wrote his poetry. Here is an example.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough
 

I took my essay about this trip through the mountains and turned it into a poem, years later, I turned it into a song.

Hope you like it.

Youth, freight train, adventure, fear
Longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere
Thick, black, putrid, dead diesel air
Engines spewing hot diesel fumes

On a flat-car, too close, too hot
On a flat-car, too close, too hot
Wonder how we’ll fare
No! No wonder! I Know, death is near
Death is near in the Western Hemisphere

We’re not on that little blue train
We’re not on that little blue train
Carrying food and toys for the little girls and boys
Saying I think I can, I think I can

We’re on that big black freight train
We’re on that big black freight train
Saying I can, I can
I can take you straight to hell
I can take you straight to hell

Sanctuary in a grain car six cars back
Sixty miles an hour down that railroad track
Unwanted freight, young and afraid
Crawling to safety on that moving train

Scared disbeliever rather jump moving train
Rather jump moving train to wooded black
Freight train’s headlight on the next-door track
Like a Hollywood movie with a missing soundtrack

We’re not on that little blue train
We’re not on that little blue train
Carrying food and toys for the little girls and boys
Saying I think I can, I think I can

We’re on that big black freight train
We’re on that big black freight train
Saying I can, I can
I can take you straight to hell
I can take you straight to hell
7.8 miles of hell