Trains

My response to Harvey Mudd College's essay prompt: Tell us about yourself. We know which activities you do and what your academic record looks like, but what don't we know? What fun, cool or interesting things about you won't fit into the categories on the application? Feel welcome to be clever or funny, or write in a way that reflects your personality.

Ever since I was a young child, I have had an affinity for and a fascination with trains of all kinds. While growing up in Russia, train travel was a regular part of my life. Often, I would travel with my grandmother or my parents into the park suburbs by taking the short-distance trains, which also took people out to their country houses, "dachas." While to most people, these trains, which were often filthy, would appear as nothing more than a means of transportation, I saw something special in the approaching machine. While waiting on the platform, I would peer into the direction from which the train would come, listening to the rails. As the nearly imperceptible speck in the horizon came closer, I would hold my breath, thrilled as the train slowed and passed me on its way to the end of the platform. Occasionally, the approaching train would blow its whistle, a shrill, piercing noise, which called of loneliness and adventure.

During the ride itself, I would always look out the window to watch the passing countryside. However, I would also watch the rails running alongside the train. Sometimes, there would be switches and the tracks would branch off; there would be a depot, perhaps a yard, or just a sidetrack with an idling locomotive, waiting for its next assignment. As the train passed by, I tried to follow the split-offs as far as I could see them. Sometimes, I would see long freight trains, and wonder about what they were carrying and where they were going. There was a platform, which was the future site of a railway museum; as numerous railway cars were retired to this site, I remember wanting to make the train go slower so that I could marvel at all of the different train cars standing on the side. Often, I would spend my summers in Crimea, before I moved to the US in 1996; the trip involved numerous trains. Looking out the window, I would love when an opposing train rushed by at such a fast speed that it was just a blur, and the pitch of its whistle went down as it passed. Ten years later, I have only a few memories of these trips, and most of them involve trains or train stations that we stopped at and not the countryside through which we traveled.

In my childhood, my amazement at the train must have been quite similar to the emotions experienced by people who were met with trains for the first time a century earlier. While the majority of people have long forgotten the romantic notions of a bygone era, I did not need a steam engine to obtain the same feeling. The train, with its forlorn whistle, seemed to call out to me to join it on its journey to whatever destination I chose. It took me away from home and transported me into a different location, one I would be seeing for the first time. Or perhaps it would take me to a favorite destination, a park, where I would walk the same trails I had discovered a few months ago, interested in finding something new that I had not noticed before. Unlike an airplane, which skims the skies above the countryside, the train moves directly through it, immersing us in the surroundings and making us feel that we are actually in the middle of it all, rather than high above.

As I grew older, I became interested in related modes of transportation. I added trams and subways to my list of favorite means of travel, both of which are forms of rail transport. While traveling on trams in St. Petersburg, I liked to go to the front of the car so that I could watch the tram driver controlling it. For a long time, my dream job was to be a driver of some sort of rail transport.

After moving to the United States, my train travels decreased dramatically, but New York City's subway system provided me with hours of contemplation and examination. The underground stations were often a world of their own, complete with musicians, shops, and beggars. Descending into the dimly-lit tunnels and underground passageways put me away from all of the hustle and noise of the city, leaving me with a dull, subdued din and the sounds of the subway trains. Even after my family moved out of the city, I continued to follow system developments closely. Someday, when I have the time and freedom to do so, I imagine myself traveling by subway to terminuses of various subway lines to city neighborhoods that I have never visited.

This fascination has also led to involvement in another hobby, model railroading. I enjoy spending hours constructing various track layouts and afterwards setting up trains to run on them. While I lack a permanent space for this activity, this does not stop me from making layouts in my room on the floor, even though I know that I will have to dismantle them only a few days later. I even did some research to find the company that made my models, which were all bought in the USSR in the 1980's, to check out its current production models. Sadly, the high cost of model railroading is preventing me from fully devoting myself to this hobby.

Just a few weeks ago, standing on the platform of the Summit train station, the approaching train's signal and rhythmic flashing of its lights, combined with a rush of displaced air as the train moved past me, instilled both a slight tinge of fear and a sense of excitement in me. I thought of how the train would rush through the New Jersey suburbs and take me to New York City, which I had not visited for months. The adrenalin rushed through my body as I prepared for the adventure ahead. The train, even though a childhood fascination, has always been more than just a child's curiosity. It is a symbol, a pathway to the mysterious, unknown, and unexplored destinations, a vehicle that takes me on new adventures, and serves as a key to remembering the old.