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 [[w:Crimea|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.

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 [[w:New York City Subway|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 [[w:USSR|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.