Hank Williams sang it best when he wrote, “I heard that lonesome whistle blow.” Me, too. I lie in bed at night and hear the comforting sounds of the “Number 9” as it passes through Great Barrington. The engineer follows the law and sounds the whistle to warn anyone who might be tempted to cross the tracks. For me, it’s like the night watchman of old saying, “All is well.” For some others, it’s something to complain about.
I admit that it may take a little getting used to in the beginning, but then the magic begins. Some take sleeping pills, but for me, it’s the train. Of course, we all have our own opinions and I figure that I live up on a big hill and the sound is just right. On the other hand, I have always wondered what it must be like to live a few feet from the railroad tracks, as so many people do, when the train comes through. I went to a wonderful massage practitioner for some time and I’d be lying there a few feet away from the railroad tracks when that train came through. Even then, there was a certain amount of comfort provided by the sound.
The Great Barrington town manager Mark Pruhenski wrote back to an observer suggesting that we have always had the church bells and the trains, and I applaud him for that. Hey, you can’t please everyone. The incredible Johnny Cash specialized in train songs and tapped into that part of Americana. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger rode the rails, and the classics that came out of all of those songwriters are part of our culture. In the old song, “Jay Gould’s Daughter,” we are told that the spoiled offspring of one of America’s richest men asked her papa to “… fix the blinds so the bums can’t ride.” In this case, Jay Gould’s daughter seems alive and well in Great Barrington: “Papa, fix the trains so I can sleep.”
I love train songs. All children know “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Everyone knows that Casey Jones died with his hand on the throttle, trying to make up time. Everyone also knows that there have been some terrible accidents involving trains, including the really tragic death of a beloved veterinarian on Route 23. I have often approached a well-marked crossing and, upon hearing the train coming, have had the urge to zip across before huge parade of railroad cars came through. In Westchester County there was a terrible accident that could have been prevented had the latest technology been in place at the time.
But it is the songs that have proven so important. Johnny Cash and Hank Williams were just a few (but the best) of those who have written about trains. Our band, the Berkshire Ramblers, starts every appearance with a tribute to Pete (Seeger) and Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) with the song “Midnight Special”: “Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me.”
Like in “Midnight Special,” trains, so symbolic of freedom, figure prominently in prison songs. “Yonder comes Miss Rosie” who goes to the warden because she “wants to free her man.” Johnny Cash sang “I hear that train a-comin’” in the classic “Folsom Prison Blues.” He continued, “I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when.”
So much for the complainer, but since 2005, a rule has stipulated that the train whistle be sounded at all public crossings. Wikipedia tells us that at the places they have to blow you should see a “whistle post.” Hey, when I first lived in Great Barrington, it took me some time to get used to it, but now I love it. The complainer cites town laws limiting noise and I get that, but sometimes laws compete: state and federal versus local. Guess who wins?
