Trains are fascinating.
I grew up a mile from a railyard. The continual sounds seemed natural like a form of background music.
My home in town now is a little farther from it, I don't hear routine noise but after midnight when everything is quiet I hear the horn announcing the nightly departure from the yard headed for Los Angeles, the rumble of diesels slowly coming up to cruise power over time measured in minutes, then along with that the successive fainter crossing horn warnings as it heads out through the surrounding area.
We took Amtrak once from Sacramento to Reno. What impressed me - overwhelmed me - was how the grade up to the crest of the Sierras - sea level to 8,000 ft in 86 miles (Roseville switchyard where the freight trains add engines for the climb, to Donner Summit) was so well engineered that the diesels pulled at an absolutely constant rate nearly all the way. That route was surveyed about the time of the Civil War - it was important to finally connect California to the US at the time - and those surveyors got it right. The route climbs following the walls of steep canyons as the foothills become granite cliffs. It's hard to imagine how they found a continuous route at constant grade upward through that maze. Listening to the engines pull was like going to the symphony.
Thanks for posting the great photo.
