Out on the Line

The Time Machine

The linking of separate geographic places is generally conceded to be the principal function of a railroad. Over the years, however, and particularly since 1958, the primary function of the Strasburg Rail Road has largely given way to a secondary function that has not only brought renewed vigor and vitality to the aged carrier but also fame of considerable magnitude. The linking of separate times has become its foremost preoccupation. To take passage aboard its ancient coaches is akin to turning back the hands of time a full half century.

The modern railroad image is one of urban implications, of stainless steel, multiple-unit streamliners hurtling along a corridor composed of decaying cities, sprawling suburbs, dreary industrial complexes, and all of the other untidy improvements which conspire to spell megalopolis. There was a time when railroads were inseparably associated with a world of things rural, of fields and cattle and trees and silos, but no more. The long-distance passenger train has lost its following to a much faster, albeit less pleasant, form of transport, while the rurally-oriented short line has long since surrendered to the overpowering forces of internal combustion and the paved highway.

Pronounced quickly and out of context, the Strasburg Rail Road sounds anachronistic. Observed in its normal surroundings, it is part of an agriculturally tuned economy suggestive of earlier and happier times. The Strasburg Rail Road is, indeed, a tangible link with pleasant yesterdays. Perhaps H. G. Wells had it in mind when he wrote his immortal classic.

William M. Moedinger - The Road to Paradise - 1971