Coal Trains Sound Like Home

Coal miners work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 363 days of the year, as do the railroads that transport coal.  I am told the exceptions are Christmas and Easter.  50% of electricity in the US is generated by the mountains and the work of coal miners in the mountains.  That coal reaches power companies by train and truck.  Trains and coal, have a long-standing committed relationship.  And how could they not when they spend almost every hour of the year serving and tending to each other?


There are rivers of trains in Williamson.  They move straight through town carrying their treasure in and out, in and out, all day.  Coal trains come to your town wherever you are. Listen for that train whistle and I'll bet you can hear it off in the distance.  I've heard the whistle myself all over this country but I hadn't imagined those trains were transporting anything but people.  In cities trains equal human transportation. In Williamson trains equal coal in motion.


You can see the piles of coal riding out of town in the open air pretty much any hour of the day.  They don't cover coal cargo, so it can be seen resting in mounds or bouncing about. On the way out some pieces free themselves, jumping overboard, as if not quite ready to leave home.  You could harvest a good amount of coal just walking up and down the train tracks here and I'm told some people do when it comes time to stay warm in the hills.


From my house I can hear the crashing sound of the train cars being put together and taken apart, some part of every day.  The rhythm of the train cars moving becomes a lullaby and that whistle, so consistent and reliable it's oddly reassuring.  I've heard the whistle sing so many places I've slept that the sound of the train whistle translates to home.  When I wake to it in the night, it's as if it's singing softly, "every thing's alright. you're safe. you're home."   By the second whistle I am back to sleep as if I never woke.  I am making my transition to home in Williamson, quietly in my sleep, almost without notice.

How I Got to the Coal Fields-The First Time

Day 1 in Coal Country

I enter the mountains in the night like a fugitive from the city.  It’s 11 o’clock and the town is quiet. Lighting on the streets is limited.  Danger it seems, lies in sharp curves, steep streets and wrong turns. After several steep inclines and circles I reach my friend through a miracle of cell phone reception at the top of a hill.  She finds me, a block away from where her friends live, at the local nursing home wandering like a patient who has temporarily lost her memory.  Glad at the sight of her, we embrace and stroll down dark streets to the sound of barking dogs and coal trains rolling in the moonlight. 

My city at eleven by contrast is fully lit.  The streets are rivers of movement, surrounded by sirens, concrete and unnatural danger.  Streetlights shine all the time whether residents are asleep or awake.  We don’t control the power switches, but maybe we could.

In the mountains as a stranger, half lost and far from home, I feel a sense of refuge, which I can’t explain.  But perhaps the danger here has learned to be quiet.  City life lends itself to suspicion.  I look over the mountains in the moonlight and I can’t resist, I am overcome with gratitude.  I’ve fallen prey to the gifts of 360 degrees of silence, strength and beauty.  For better or for worse I am already in love with the mountains. 

We spend the evening at Lady’s Night drinking, dancing and singing.  By bedtime, around 2 am, the air in my lungs feels heavy and my mouth tastes like metal.  I don’t know what is in the air here but whatever it is my body knows the difference.  I check my bag for my asthma inhaler, slip it under my pillow and surrender to restless dreams of ghosts and friends plotting community change.