Addiction

My name is Ian. And I am an addict.

It all started in the summer, maybe August, when I started to watch videos by a guy called Jaw Tooth. He's a nice American chap who spends all his time, apparently, recording massive frieght trains on main lines, on little used branch lines and sometime rattling down the main street of some towns.

It is an amazing thing, to see a two mile long train bringing the centre of La Grange, Kentucky, to a halt.

You don't believe me?

I mean this is incredible.

I watched video after video showing freight trains rattling down little used.

Then I got thinking, always a worrying turn, what about cab views of trains running? And I wondered what the view of the driver would be like as the trains on the L in Chicago would look. Well, wonder no longer, as the Chicago Transit Authority recorded trains on all its routes, metro and outer suburban, so you could follow a train through the suburbs and urban sprawl, then climb on the ancient iron trestles and go round the L and head back out again.

Over a month, I travelled all routes. In and out of Chicago.

There are dozens of these, including riding of the little used spurs and junctions. I rode them all, while listening to the radio in the evenings, while Jools watched other stuff in the bedroom, or read quietly in the corner.

What I wanted to see, was the electric double track trains street running through a town, I knew it was in the Chicago area, which is why I travelled on all the lines. Then one day I watched a video to Gary, Indianna, and there was a follow on video.

Jaw Tooth, I think, had a shot of a double deck passenger train stopping in the middle of a town and pick up passengers. I found out this was the 8 Street Station, and in the videoo below you can follow the street running from 32:26.

To get the full effect, you need to see how mad it looks with a full size, sometimes double deck train, running on the streets of a town, Michigan City, mixing with cars and trucks.

But this is the soft core stuff. America can only satisfy so much, for something harder you need to go to Switzerland or Japan, that's where the crazy stuff happens. And You Tube, other Tubes are available, learns what you want and deals you more hard core stuff.

Running up the side of mountains, dashing through the snow, running on streets in Switzerland, or running from one side of Japan to another, along river valleys, through tunnels in the middle and down the other side, taking up to 5 hours. I watched them, one after another.

I think I have weaned myself off them, finally. As I realise I want to see trains in urban settings, weaving through houses, over level crossings, just countryside no longer interests me. I can fast forward, or jump to the next town.

But this is my favourite, other than the Michigan City ones, this is an overhead railway in Japan, like flying low over the town, traffic then through tunnels. ONly takes 8 minutes to watch.

I think I have reached saturation point. I can stop. If I want.