Mono Monday : : Love to Travel

I love the train tracks which pass the Flying Goat and the depot next door., although I'm not sure why.  I sat outside today  and thought about trains because the high temperature was near 80F degrees.

I am fascinated by the idea of train travel…perhaps because I have a romantic notion of it but little real  experience. I can still remember my parents' Model A Ford, named 'Chipsy'. I was very small at the time and I think Chipsy was pretty long in the tooth by then. It was Henry Ford and his inexpensive assembly line, no frills black cars that revolutionized travel in this country. The tracks of the Red Car, which had taken my father to and from work in Los Angeles, were torn out and replaced by roads and ultimately freeways. Similar commuter rail tracks in Berkeley were also torn out to make room for the modern automobile.

 I couldn't get the shot I had envisioned because I forgot that  a fence has been built  to "educate" people to the fact that someday there will actually be a train on the track and it might not be an ideal place to sit and have coffee. 

It is ironic that both Los Angeles and the Bay Area are now building, at vast expense,  new rail systems to replace the ones that were torn out in the '40's and '50's I love the idea of sitting on a train and reading a book or newspaper or playing with my phone (or all three at once!) rather than battling my way down a gridlocked freeway further impeded by endless construction to widen it.

Perhaps I will have a chance to find out, if the train ever starts, and actually goes someplace I want to go. More likely I will be sitting in an 'autonomous vehicle , stuck in traffic.