Railroad in Chicago

Tracks at C & NW RR's Proviso yard, Chicago, Ill. (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

If you click on the picture above, it will take you to a cool collection of Flickr photos that is based on public photo collections. This one of the railroads in Chicago reminds me of growing up.

When I was quite young, my family and I lived in Waterford, Michigan, and railroad tracks ran through our back yard. A few years later, we lived in Holly, Michigan, and I used to watch out the window to see the red lights that I would call "choo choo trains."

Later, we lived in Kingsley, Michigan, and my friends and I used to walk along the train tracks that curved through northern Michigan. We would find railroad spikes, get coins flattened, and wave to the engineers.

My parents even have a friend who retired from the railroad family. He once told me that the song "Casey Jones" by the Grateful Dead is "pretty much based on reality." Give it a listen.