A few weeks before Prom, John and his two friends decided to spend all day Saturday and do one of their “Marathon Railfanning” days that they did every once in a while. They would wake up an hour before dawn and they would ride their bikes down the the Amtrak station with their camera gear. They would not leave until after sunset. This gave the three of them time to talk about their latest models that had purchased from one of the area’s hobby shops or from a recent model train show. For them, it was their own little escape from reality.
John arrived first at the station. He parked his bike on the east side of that station next to one of the concrete benches. He started to check that his camera had survived the trip. He did not have to worry though as he had made this trip on his bike several times before. He had celebrated his 18th birthday a couple of months before and his father gave him a new camera, a Nikon D40. He loved the camera camera, mainly because it was the latest Nikon SLR that had come out a couple of weeks before his birthday. The camera only came with a 35-55mm lens that could only zoom in so far, so for a month after his birthday, he saved his money to get another lens, a 55-200 that could zoom in as far as 1/4 mile away from the subject. He had just bought it the previous weekend and this was the first time he would be able to try it out
Scott arrived a few minutes later, followed shortly after by Jason. Light started to break in the sky as they settled down and they all looked forward to a full day of train action.
“So John, are you taking Kelsy to prom this year?” Asked Jason
“I only wish I could, Derek asked her out the second that they announced the date” John sighed. He thought about her pretty face when Jason mentioned her name.
“I figured one of those assholes would get to her first. You know they only want to get in her pants” Scott chimed in. He also had a crush on Kelsy, but not as bad as John. Scott was more interested in her best friend, Shelby.
“I know, right, I just wish she would see that. Sometimes she can be foolish, but going to prom with one of the Varsity players just makes her look better in the eye of the school” I told them.
“Sometimes that can be the worst. I know what you are going through, John, I asked Emily to prom last week, but she turned me down. Seems to me that she is going to Prom with Jeremy” Jason said.
“Hey, we are going to go together, not as dates, obviously, but as friends. God, that would not look good if we were going there as each other’s date” John said. The thought alone sent a shiver down his spine.
“Ha!” Scott laughed “Who knows, maybe one of the jocks will do something stupid, and we can ride to the rescue to help the lady in distress.”
“That does happen at every dance, but I don’t think that we would even have any luck doing that, as you know, there are plenty of other guys that are better looking than us that would have more luck.” Jason commented.
“All we can do is just go there, stay for an hour or two, then we can come here and do some night time photography, or if dad lets me use the car, we can take a little trip over into Illinois and see whats over there” John said. “After all, I would rather be out trackside than go to a so called dance where all they play is Rap.”
“I agree, I can’t see why anyone likes the stuff, all it is to me is just fast talking to a very bad beat” replied Jason. Jason hated rap with a passion, he was a country boy, and if it was not Country or 70’s and 80’s rock, then it was crap music. He tolerated the other types of music, but he hated rap with passion
Scott looked at a Jason and said “You need to get used to it Jason, after all, its not going to go away just because you hate it.”
Then the scanner went off, it was the defect detector that was about a mile away.
“UP DETECTOR, MILEPOST, ONE TWO POINT TWO, TRACK TWO, NO DEFECTS. REPEAT, NO DEFECTS. TOTAL AXLE, TWO FOUR ZERO, TRAIN SPEED, ONE NINE MILES PER HOUR, TEMPERATURE, SIX EIGHT DEGREES, DETECTOR OUT” emitted the electronic voice
“Looks like we have a manifest.” John told his friends as he got up to get into position to grab his shots.
John got into position when the crossing activated, ringing its bell and lowering it’s gates to prevent any cars from trying to cross in front of the train. The train came into view, and he was very pleased to see a Kansas City Southern locomotive on the point of the train. He snapped about a dozen photos of the train as it rounded the sweeping around the broad curve and past the station. There were some freight cars as well that he photographed as well. A Maryland and Pennsylvania Boxcar, a Union Pacific company Tank Car, and Flat car that was hauling a beat up, derelict passenger car that looked like it was once used on the famous California Zephyr.
The train passed, and as the last car passed, he saw Kelsy standing on the other side. She was with Shelby. She was not here to hang out with him this time. He knew that the two of them were walking down the street to get some McDonald’s.
“Hi Kelsy, Shelby” John told them, “lovely day for a walk, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, out photographing your trains again” Kelsy replied. She knew that he really enjoyed what he did and it made her happy that her best guy friend did this instead of getting high on drugs or sneaking beers out of his dads fridge to get drunk
“You know it, Scott and Jason are with me, they are around here some where”
“Tell them I said hi, I can’t really stay and talk, Shelby and I are getting some food then her dad is taking us to get our dresses for prom. Speaking of which, are you going?” She asked
“Yeah, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask anyone, so the boys and I are going by ourselves and just stay for a couple of hours at most”
“That’s a shame, I am sure if you asked, someone would have said yes.” Kelsy grinned as she said this.
They said bye and the girls walked down the street as John went to rejoin his friends on the bench.
“Where are they going?” Asked Scott
“To McDonald’s, where else?” John laughed
John and his friends ended up photographing 34 freight trains and all four Amtrak trains that stopped in Kirkwood. The entire time, they were talking about the upcoming prom, and Jason even brought one of his new models that he bought. It was a beautiful HO scale hand crafted brass locomotive from Overland Models of a Union Pacific General Electric model U50 (Look it up!). Both John and Scott were both amazed that Jason could afford such a model, as the retail price was around $1,200. He told them that he had been saving for two years to get it.
That night, after John had some dinner and had taken a shower, he got onto his computer to start editing his pictures. Some of the shots he deleted right away because they were duplicates, and he only kept the ones that were most appealing to the eye. It was shortly after 11 when the phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Kelsy.
“There is only one person I know who would be calling me this late!” giving a chuckle as he said this.