This train stops at West Station, a desolate station that was once a flag-stop station, but has now been modified for regularization.
This station has no electronic screens, no loudspeakers announcing train numbers; instead, a staff member holds up a sign with the train number and calls it out with a megaphone, giving a sense of returning to the last century, adding a different hue to the fast-paced life of the 21st century.
To board this train, people need to pass through a narrow underground passage. The passage is cramped and low, with smooth cement walls covered in spots. In the corners, water drips down through cracks, forming a shallow stream of muddy water flowing along the edge of the steps. The steps have been worn into a slight arc from the constant foot traffic, and near the middle, the bottom few steps have been flattened, with some dust accumulating in the depressions. As one passes through the passage, the gaps in the ceiling grating leave only a sliver of daylight, with dust floating in the beam of light. Because this is a branch line, almost all the trains running here are freight trains, with numerous tracks crisscrossing like rusty veins winding around the station area, and the only platform is squeezed lonely between these tracks. There are no signs, only a wooden station nameplate, its paint chipped and the lettering slightly blurred, with the ground covered in cemented gravel, tiny stones often lifted by the wind only to fall back into the cracks. Several tracks extend parallel, and the gravel between the sleepers and rails has been flattened by the passing wheels, the surface of the rails gleaming coldly, with the edge of the platform marked by a yellow warning line, the line faded from years of foot traffic. Everything here is filled with echoes of history, gentle and lonely, evoking a long-lost sense of desolation, as if one has traveled back to an abandoned subway platform or a dream deep within some memory.
Accompanied by the sound of clanging, the train slowly arrives at the platform. Its body is a greenish-blue, with the paint peeling to reveal the base color. The windows are square, framed in black metal, and the glass is perpetually dusty. The doors slide open on rollers, leaving behind varying degrees of rust marks on the tracks. Between the carriages, rubber bumpers connect them, with cracks appearing on the surface of the straps.
In one corner of the platform, a young couple stands with their backpacks. The backpacks are made of woven canvas, with worn corners; their scarves are made of fine fabric, with neat edges. Their silhouettes seem out of place in the environment, yet they walk calmly within it. I understand them, for like them, I am not here out of necessity for travel but to deliberately experience this journey, to slow down a little in this suffocatingly fast-paced era. Perhaps that is why they walk so quietly, not speaking or hurrying to board, just taking one step at a time, as if listening to the breath of the railway. They do not belong to the past, yet they do not fully belong to the present; they are people who come bearing the future, trying to understand those who silently supported this land from within a green train carriage.
Some say that such trains should have been eliminated long ago. The dilapidated carriages, the hard wooden seats, and after a short journey, one would cough up a taste of coal. But it is precisely this train that, over the years, has taken countless children from the mountains out into the world, transporting heavy sacks, cotton, apples, and hope time and again to the plains and cities. This is not just a means of transportation; it is the flow of memory. I sit by the window, the glass beside me already fogged up, and a scratch of my nail can peel away a layer of frost-like moisture. As the train starts, the fleeting view outside is of the dilapidated outskirts of a city—half-finished buildings, abandoned factories, and rusted water towers, like scars a city cannot hide, gently brushed past by this train, quietly erasing them.
The scenery outside gradually recedes, accompanied by one silver-white high-speed train after another whizzing by from afar, clean and crisp, like a streak of light cutting across the sky. That symbolizes another direction of this era: speed, efficiency, technology, carrying the expectations of another kind of people. Meanwhile, our green train continues to sway along, powered by a diesel engine, traversing the Gobi and hills, following the railway forgotten by most.
This train is not in a hurry, nor does it concern itself with costs; it stubbornly follows its own path, like a ray of light in the cracks of time, illuminating those who still live quietly, as well as the young couple sitting by the window. They are watching the scenery outside, and the scenery is watching them. They may not fully understand the weight on their shoulders, but at this moment, their silence has already responded to the future.
The sky outside gradually darkens, and the western dusk paints the world in a layer of tranquil gray-orange. In the distance, the mountain shadows stretch, resembling an old earth elder silently watching this old train pass by. It is not loud, nor dazzling, but like the trailing sound of history, it slowly elongates, echoing softly in the wind.
I ride such a train in the northwest, commemorating the Chengkun Railway built by the people of Southwest China many years ago.
This article is synchronized and updated by Mix Space to xLog. The original link is https://fmcf.cc/posts/Ode/A_Train_To_Past