The Coal Train

 

Maymont is a 100-acre (0.156 sq mi) Victorian estate and public park in Richmond, Virginia. It contains Maymont Mansion, now a historic house museum, an arboretum, formal gardens, a carriage collection, native wildlife exhibits, a nature center, and Children's Farm.

In 1893, James H. Dooley, a wealthy Richmond lawyer and philanthropist, and his wife, Sallie, completed their elaborate Gilded Age estate on a site high above the James River. According to their wishes, after their deaths Maymont was left to the people of Richmond.

As a lad, I used to cycle down there, walk the paths, explore the mansion, look at the animals and climb the rocks. It was also a great place to do drugs.

The entire park, stuck in the middle of a neighborhood surrounded by chain link fence next to a wide river was a perfect wonderland. The only other wonderland I used was Williamsburg, but Maymont was just down the street.

I wasn’t the only one who took advantage of lack security of the day (and night) but it was a unique experience. Could walk the hills and see the cars going over the bridge. There was (is) a serenity being there.

One of the things I remember the most was the coal train.

Between the river and the edge of the park was a train track that carried the coal cars from the west of the state to the Vepco power plant to fuel our electricity. The train moved slow and had that loud rattle of on the rails, particularly up that close. What was so impressive is the train when on and on and on.

On a warm summer evening I can hear the trains running thorough the town. To the north are the freight and passenger trains. Eight blocks to the east, down in a valley are the north/south rails carrying folks to Florida and back but the highway running on both sides of the tracks muffles the sound. To the south I can hear the coal train. The coal train runs next to the most exclusive neighborhood within the city boundaries and they get an ear full.

I’m far enough away from all the tracks that the sound is romantic far off train with the occasional whistle. I’ve always enjoyed the train ride but never wondered about where all that coal was coming from or how it was being used.

Occasionally the city would have a scent of tobacco due to all the warehouses. Now and then the wind would blow from the south and bring the industrial smell of Hopewell down river but never remember the soot of burnt coal.

I knew there was a line running from the alley to the side of my house to a glass bubble with a spinning wheel that was read for billing my power usage. If I screwed in a light bulb and flipped a switch on the wall, I got electricity.

I never thought about how that electricity was produced. My father and mother grew up before there was electricity and were scrummed by the appliances of the 50’s. Electricity made all the movies exciting before CGI. All this power was affordable and plentiful and everyone enjoyed neon signs and streetlights and Christmas decorations.

Like the gasoline for our automobiles, the diesel for our trucks, the oil to heat our houses, our lives were comfortable and we didn’t care where it came from.

There are lots of stories and songs about coalmines. Men (and children) who worked down in the mines had few options. It was hard and dangerous work and was passed down for generations. Black lung was just a benefit from working down in the ground.

When that process became to labor intensive and larger trucks and excavators were invented, entire mountain tops could just be plowed down in strip mining and the coal hauled away, but to carry enough coal to power a city, trains were still the best method.

There were coal mine cave in accidents and oil spills but if it wasn’t in my backdoor and didn’t change the price, it was part of using energy (known as fossil fuel). Then there was Three Mile Island.

Nuclear fuel (a by-product from the Atomic Bomb) was the lasted ‘clean’ alternative fuel to power our ever-expanding need. Like coal sludge or air pollution, nuclear radiation can’t be covered up or blow away.

So today there is talk about solar energy or wind energy or even fuels made out of algae. The subject of ‘Climate Change’ is on the news hit parade like it was back in the day of ‘Earth Day’ celebrations or ‘Save the Whales’ protest. 

If we stopped today, no one could access the Internet or watch Netflix or have your grocery store restocked or be able to drive there. Houses will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter and a lot of people would be out of work.

I know the idea is transition from fossil fuel to emission free sources of energy, training coal miners how to build windmills and electric cars and that thin wire running to your home will keep the lights on. 

Most of us don’t know (or care) where things come from. How chickens wind up fried in a bucket or cows wind up as hamburgers is not on our moral radar. The same is our power source until the lights go out.

Still I will miss that rumble of the coal train and the empty cars going back to get another load.