This past May I took a week-long business trip in the UK, starting in Aberdeen, Scotland on Monday morning and ending at London Heathrow at the end of the day on Friday. Normally this type of travel is grueling and exhausting, and I would have groaned, except our business partner insisted I travel each evening to the next city by train. By train!! My frown turned to a grin.
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Markópoulo (Greek: Μαρκόπουλο Μεσογαίας) is a market and farming town in Attica, east of Athens. For many years, it was a bustling market center that retained its small-town look, although it was only an hour or so drive from Athens. But recently, developers built houses and condominium apartments, some out in the olive fields. As usual, I am mystified; who are the potential customers? Today, Athens Elefthérios Venizélos International Airport is only a few kilometers away and the area is slowly becoming more commercial.
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Nestled way back in the lush mountains of West Virginia is a place time has almost forgotten. There are no big chain supermarkets or restaurants, no massive apartment complexes, no traffic jams, and not even any cell phone service. What there is however, is nothing short of magic. In the air is the faint odor of coal smoke and oil, and if you listen, you may just hear the lonesome cry of a steam locomotive’s whistle!
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Just before I step out into the unlit hotel hallway, I grab a few packs of Marlboros and stuff them into my bag. My room door is stuck and needs a good, forceful yank to close the latch. I fear every guest has been awoken by the racket, so with soft steps, I walk down the stairs and continue past the police officer sleeping on the lobby sofa, helmet on the short table next to her. As I open the lobby door I am greeted by frigid February air saturated with the sweet, but the harsh smell of burning coal, a smell I had grown to love.
Illuminated by the glow of the trunk light of his Volkswagen, our guide Jun waits for me and my friend and fellow photographer, Todd. Jun will be taking us from our Sandaoling hotel to the last dragons just a few miles away.
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I first met George Hiotis in October of 1994 on the station platform at Val-Royal, a suburban neighborhood northwest of the center of Montreal. He and I had separately and independently decided to travel there to see for ourselves the electrification on the former Canadian National Deux-Montagnes commuter line. Four of the boxcab locomotives that we photographed dated back to 1917, built by General Electric; another handful had a foreign pedigree, constructed by English Electric in 1924; and the “modern” three steeplecabs, also GEs, came out of the Erie plant in 1950. On top of the ancient equipment, Val-Royal remained one of the last places in North America where a station agent hooped up orders to every inbound train. It felt like a trip in a time machine.
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In East Tennessee there’s a very nice excursion railroad, called the Tennessee Valley Railroad. It offers a short run option from Chattanooga up to Missionary Ridge, through a hand cut, Civil War era tunnel, behind one of a variety of nicely restored steam locomotives. At the top, there’s a turntable and you can watch them turn the steamer around—very cool!
Or, you can board a three and one-half hour run called the Hiwassee Loop, departing from Etowah Tennessee, south of Knoxville, and re-live the glory days of the Louisville & Nashville’s passenger service over the L&N’s mountain lines that wind east and south toward Georgia alongside the scenic Hiwassee River.
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