Blues on the Railway

The Train Kept-a-rolling

The plasticky Baoca BC-9

I went on another bicycle trip across the the suburbs of my home town when I had the luck of seeing this train coming. Being a mechanical engineer and all, I can hardly stand still at powerfulness of these machines; it is always very impressive, no matter how old you are. I was carrying and old, plastic, 35mm camera, very lightweight and convenient in this kind of journey. I don't remember when I got this device nor do I know where it came from (I only know it is a Baoca BC-9 because it says so), but it turns out it takes pretty interesting little pictures like this one.

This reminds me of another one of the silly and useless activities I more or less regularly engage. I have this idea of collecting sounds of mundane life, like a photograph, but of a sound instead of a view. So here the sonography of a train rolling. It might have been a different train, in a different day from the one of the picture, but at least it was the same place.

Very likely, most of you will find this hundred of seconds absolutely uninteresting, but I like to think a good part of the perception of my reality comes from my ears. The loud and rhythmic sound of the rolling steel contributes to the amazement these artefacts generate in me. I could never be one of those people that are always using headphones while out on the street, I'd feel like I'm missing half of what's going on.