We ride the monorail to the city center, food court and live music on stage, families milling around on a holiday weekend, heading to the children’s museum or playground or bringing tourists to the iconic needle in the sky. Their dad is hungry, so he peels off to peruse the menu of greasy gourmet burgers, poutine doused in thick sauce, a grilled cheese dripping in butter for the kids. I veer the little ones to the centerpiece, the electric train. Every winter it’s set up in the center house, a pretend village sprinkled with snow and Christmas cheer. I never noticed the details before. My children now old enough to pause, stand still in wonder long enough for me to explore. Tiny figurines placed carefully, carrying wrapped boxes, firewood, bundled babies in their arms. My four year old’s excitement builds as the train speeds toward his face pressed against the plexiglass. It’s a wistful display of a bygone time but, modern boy though he is, the old fashioned train still holds charm.
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My older brother had a train table growing up: handmade, wood, painted a mossy green. Tracks laid down across the entire span, chin level to my 8-year-old peering eyes. I remember a tunnel, trains traversing through a plastic snow topped mountain pass. The contraption took up most of his large bedroom, meant to be a downstairs family room or den. There was an opening in the middle. We’d climb under and pop up in the center as if underground moles. He conducted the whole display, detailed greenery sprouting on the landscape. I’d watch in wonder as the trains sped by.
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My grandfather had a train computer game he liked to play. When we’d visit his tidy rambler in a well-to-do suburb in the early 2000’s we’d sit in his den, this octogenarian navigating down the pixelated tracks on his desktop monitor, clicking keys to make the trains whistle and stop. It wasn’t the most entertaining way to spend our time with this beloved elder of the family, but we indulged him and his enthusiasm for the simple program. He took computer lessons in his last decade of life, he traveled the world, he went sky diving when he turned 80, showing up on my parents’ front porch proudly wearing a t-shirt and holding a VHS tape record of the tandem free fall as proof. He must’ve always loved trains too. I like to picture him as a little boy, nose pressed to the glass at Christmastime, as a teen piecing together the intricate parts of a model train, placing the finished product triumphantly on winding tracks.