The Railwayman

Our fathers grow old, despite their best efforts, and we eventually lose them as they board the last train to glory, to borrow from an Arlo Guthrie song.  My dad departed the station twenty years ago, but he remains with me almost daily in my reveries. 

When I was a boy, he used to take me to local railway crossings to watch the big steam locomotives and their endless caravans go storming by.  I treasured those occasions because I had his undivided attention, a not-so-frequent circumstance in a family that numbered five children. 

He enjoyed the time with me, too, I’m sure; but he loved those trains even more than I did, a boyhood fascination he never lost.  If he could have chosen to be anything else in life, I believe he’d have been an engineer on one of those behemoths. He was truly a railwayman, if only in his dreams.

As a lad, it never occurred to me to ask him if his dad, my grandpa, had taken him to see the trains once upon a time. But I’ve often wondered if, during those times with me, he might have been fondly remembering standing by the rails with his own father.

He wasn’t a railwayman, but these next lines commemorate what he meant to me, and express my love for him—

The Railwayman

You’d take me down beside the rails
To watch the trains go tearing by,
And tell me all those wond’rous tales
Of engineers who sat on high,
In cabs of steel, and steam, and smoke;
Of firemen in their floppy hats,
The coal they’d move, the fires they’d stoke.
As o’er the hills and ‘cross the flats
The locomotives huffed and steamed,
Their whistles blowing long and loud.
And one wee boy, he stood and dreamed
Beside his daddy, tall and proud.

Terrifying monsters were they,
Bearing down upon us two, who
Felt their force on that steel highway.
Hearts a-racing---loving, true.
I’d almost flinch as on they came
Toward us, with their dragon-face
A-belching, spewing, throwing flame,
And steam, and smoke, o’er ev’ry place.
But you’d stand firm beside the track,
And, oh! the spectacle was grand.
So, unafraid, I’d not step back,
'Cause you were there and held my hand.

Oh, Railwayman, oh, Railwayman,
I’m glad you knew when you grew old,
How much I loved you---Dad, my friend,
Who shared with me your dreams untold.
Oh, Railwayman, oh, Railwayman!
If I, beside you once again,
Could only stand, safe in your hand,
Awaiting, with you, our next train.

All aboard, Dad...all aboard!