When I was a kid the sounds of train whistles drifted over our valley at all hours of the day and night. The sound of train cars being coupled could be heard for miles as well. It was, in a strange way, comforting and indicative of home.

Hopping trains was a regional past time for many of us boys. The more daring kids claimed to have ridden as far as New Jersey, but it was hard to tell. I only saw them hop on and leave. I never rode one very far. It always felt too dangerous.

Waiting at rail crossings was a normal traffic impediment. No one seemed to think it odd for two diesels locomotives to hold cars and trucks while pulling 300 cars of freight through town.
Despite our parents repeated warning, we kids put stuff on the tracks to see what would happen, a quarter and a dime, a steel bar, a steel bolt, each would be crushed to a heated flatness no amount of milling could accomplish. We spent entire afternoons on this interesting and dangerous practice.

Climbing in abandoned collieries, and shooting at rats with BB guns in and around these structures, was considered entirely normal. I can personally attest that a sliver in your knee from hard dry wood one hundred years old, blackened with a century of coal dust is like no other. Train tracks ran right through and under these massive old structures, and we would climb from the old cars into the wooden supports. No one supervised these old sites.

Then there was the kid who got cut in half.

He and his friends were fooling around on the tracks on a summer evening. Something happened and he fell under the wheels trying to jump a train. His friends panicked and ran away. When they calmed down and came back, the kid’s body was severed at his hips. His upper body had dragged itself about 20 feet before he died.

This was the story at least, but I had it verified by guys who said they were there.
All of this occurred in what seemed to us perfect normalcy.

At some point maybe 30 years ago all train whistles died out. Whatever remained of the rail industry quietly went to sleep.

Now it’s coming back.

Once again the whistles sound all night and all day, and long trains cause traffic to back up as they pass. A new generation of kids gets to experience the danger and thrill of having massive equipment rolling by their old coal miner homes, loaded with freight and graffiti from around the country and the world.

It is not the trains I fear. They are awesome and powerful and no one could fail to be intrigued by what their size and appearance.

They are however a harbinger of new disturbances to our environment. Work underground to extract natural gas cannot but have effects on the surface. It may contaminate our water supply. Most likely it will. It will certainly have an impact on the lives of our children, especially if they learn to hop trains like we did.

Eugene C. Kelley, Esquire
Kelley & Polishan, LLC
259 South Keyser Avenue
Old Forge, PA 18518
Tel: 570-562-4520
Fax: 570-562-4531