Something strange happens when people are forced to wait for a train passing through the center of Salem at D Street. They start to go through the seven stages of grief in the Kuebler-Ross grief cycle:
- Shock or Disbelief - Oh my gosh, a train in the middle of the day!
- Denial - That is not the no-pass bar dropping right in front of my car.
- Bargaining - Ok, I’ll wait here, but only as long as it takes for Rusted Root to sing “On My Way” (Seriously, this happened to me yesterday).
- Guilt – If only I had gotten here sooner. Twenty seconds would have done it.
- Anger – God**** M*#$%F^%$#! (pounds fist on steering wheel)
- Depression – I’m never getting home. This train will never pass. I’m at 80 boxcars and there are 1,254 more. No one loves me.
- Acceptance and Hope – My, isn’t there gorgeous, inspirational graffiti on these Union Pacific boxcars. Look at what all these weird people are doing as they wait for the train to pass.
I waited for no less than 26 minutes at the D Street railroad crossing yesterday at about 11:30 a.m. By the time the path was clear, the people waiting on both sides of the track had stopped being angry and had started doing really strange things. One kid — obviously just steps from high school, where he was supposed to be — kept looking for a clear path between boxcars when the train started going really slow.
Seriously kids, do not do this. Very dangerous.
One girl, who looked about 15, started spinning around in circles.
The angry people in the car behind me got out and had a conversation.
And the 38 cars waiting on the other side of the tracks? Who knows what they were doing. Within seconds, they had sped across the tracks and were gone.
Yes, a true Salem experience! Very funny the way you describe it. Thanks for making me laugh this morning.
We used to live a mere block from the train, which would blow its horn as it drove through the center of town thanks to the crossings. It was amazing the evolution of being woken up and irritated by that horn, until the point that you would truly never hear it. After a year or so, I would be on the phone, and people would say “is that a train driving by??” and I realized I no longer even noticed.
I’ve heard that story many times, Ryan. It’s happening to me as well, and I’m not really close to the train (can hear it at about 10:30 from our bedroom).
There is a scene in Blues Brothers (the original) when they are sitting in their apartment right after Jake gets out of prison and the El keeps going by and shaking the apartment and they don’t even register it. That’s a little what it feels like to live in Salem near the railroad after a while.
I remember after I moved futher South, I actually missed the noise.
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