Changes

Trains

101 bytes added, 14:19, 18 August 2007

no edit summary

:My response to [[w:Harvey Mudd College|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.''

[[Image:ER2 emu.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Elektrichka departing from station platform at [[Vaskelovo]]]] 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 [[w:Template:Cities and towns under jurisdiction of Saint Petersburg|suburban parks]] by taking the [[w:elektrichka|short-distance trains]], which also took people out to their country houses, "[[w:dacha|dacha]]s." 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 [[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.

Tramrunner

41

edits

lensowiki β

Changes

Trains

lensowiki ^β