A little background on my train fetish can be found at Tracks Of The Past.

The other day I stepped back into my childhood in the physical sense, albeit for just awhile. Mentally, I spend a lot of time there, savoring some memories, seething over others, thinking of writing about them, good or bad, but rarely do I replay a part of the past outside of my head and again enjoy childish acts. But, on Sunday, I did so. I revisited the train tracks alongside Alexandria’s Ben Brenman Park with a plan. While I usually loiter about the tracks, trying to catch a photo of a good sky or listen for approaching trains, all the while keeping Lucy from continuing on with her walk, this Sunday I came ready with a pocketful of pennies, each destined for the rails.

Veering off of the wide, paved path that runs parallel to the tracks, I crossed a short piece of field, then followed the worn path through a few yards of thicket that leads to the crushed-stone ballast cradling the tracks. Not to be left out of the task at hand, Lucy agreed to stand guard and look out for oncoming trains. A very important job for obvious reasons.

To help find the coins, once transformed, I carefully placed them, 14 in all, atop four rails, 10 ties apart. I spaced them along the shiniest part of the rail, the part that looked to bear the brunt of the tons of weight. Only a few hours longer would have brought results, as the Cardinal, on its way from Chicago to New York, would be the next passenger train to come through, but that was a little too long as we had already been out for awhile in the heat and humidity. So, home we went.

Come Monday morning, too impatient to wait for an evening walk at the tracks, we took Lucy there for her morning walk and excitedly started the hunt for pennies. Some traveled far, a few feet or so, while others laid by the rails…

The fruits of my labor. Of 14 coins, 10 were retrieved. Not bad.

Only a few were recognizable, and while some were bright and shiny, others looked charred, possibly something picked up from the track or the wheels.

So, the past was revisited and although I wasn’t crouched in front of the train station being shooed by the conductor as happened years ago, all in all, it was a cool experience, just as happened years ago…