Trains Quotes

“For a certain kind of person there is literally nothing nicer than eating breakfast by yourself on a moving train with a good book.”
― Lev Grossman, The Silver Arrow

“I’ll use my divination and look into the future. Hey, you know what, I’m seeing the future right now. If I stand here and wait, then in three minutes a train’s going to come. And after that, another train’s going to come. Here, I’ll let you guess what’s going to happen afterwards. I’ll give you a hint—there’s a train.”
― Benedict Jacka, Veiled

“When the leaves began to fall, all the visitors were gone, and the whistle from the train passing through Orange gave a long, lonesome, shrill sound as it rolled through without stopping to let off any passengers.”
― Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking

“Gone. We were out in the country and everything slowed down into rolling hills covered with snow. There were trees, but no leaves, and I could not remember seeing anything so white and clean. Winter in the city was gray and the snow was dirty, but out here it was so bright it hurt my eyes and I had to turn away.”
― Gary Paulsen, Christmas Sonata

“The journey has its own lyrics
A duet of balanced motion
The rails and wheels in tune”
― Richard L. Ratliff

“As long as you know in which station and at what hour you should wait, which train to take and if necessary when and where to get off that train to take a different line, to take a different train, you shall be accepted as a smart traveller!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The train you have been waiting all your life may not stop at your station; the best thing to survive such an emotional disaster is to give a chance to the next train which will stop at your station!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Through the dark night chasing the morning light
That headlight streaming white through the night”
― Richard L. Ratliff

“If you're waiting for the train of your life and not getting on another train, you're making a big mistake because almost always other trains will take you to that special train!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Sometimes the smoke from the factories and riverboats and trains would obscure the night sky entirely. But the town's industrial breath was blowing somewhere else tonight, and so the Armstrong house was bathed in starlight. Nell studied the little white specks, like glittering dust on black velvet, and she asked,

"You boys ever wonder what it'd be like to be somewhere else?”
― Kelsey Brickl, Hardtack: A Civil War Story

“Pardon Me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?”
― Mack Gordon, Chattanooga Choo Choo

“He who is in love with the station will never be attracted by the trains!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“I read somewhere it is psychologically beneficial to stand near things greater and more powerful than you yourself, so as to dwarf yourself (and your piddlyass bothers) by comparison. To do so, the writer said, released the spirit from its everyday moorings, and accounted for why Montanans and Sherpas, who live near daunting mountains, aren't much at complaining or nettlesome introspection. He was writing about better "uses" to be made of skyscrapers, and if you ask me the guy was right on the money. All alone now beside the humming train cars, I actually do feel my moorings slacken, and I will say it again, perhaps for the last time: there is mystery everywhere, even in a vulgar, urine-scented, suburban depot such as this. You have only to let yourself in for it. You can never know what's coming next. Always there is the chance it will be--miraculous to say--something you want.”
― Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

“Nothing trains a man better than his own trials.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“I’m not saying I’ll turn down a good road trip, but it has been the trains, ferries, subways, and most frequently the buses that have most helped me travel the world. When I want to explore a place, to get a sense of its culture, people, and neighborhoods (even my own), I have found that there is no better way to travel than public transportation. Crowded or nearly empty, full of conversations or silence, scheduled or unscheduled, with live chickens or Styrofoam packets of eggs, on sleek coaches or beat-up minibuses, whether in my hometown or a new town in a foreign country: traveling on public transportation becomes a primary insight into a place and culture.”
― Bryanna Plog, Make Sure You Have a Map

“If you miss the train, those on the train will also miss something because every person has the potential to change the fate of every person they come across!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The last wendigo died in 1962, or so the story goes. Reputedly, he (it?) stood in front of the train to Churchill, Manitoba, believing that the train would stop for him, a supernatural being, and then he would be able to eat the passengers. The train ran him over. Sic transit gloria mundi.”
― Lawrence Millman, At the End of the World: A True Story of Murder in the Arctic

“From that day onwards I spent a lot of time on Park Bridge, and soon became aware of other boys with similar interests leaning out over the engines as they slowed down on their way into the goods yard, or cruised at speed further out on their way up the East Coast main line between Edinburgh and London. For Edinburgh was a rail centre, and I lived at the eastern end of a great loop of lines punctuated by stations, depots, tunnels, repair yards and goods terminals. I could watch the flagship engines of the London and North Eastern Railway rush by, a long procession of carriages drawn after them as they headed for Edinburgh Waverley - the company's very own station and a mecca for train lovers - or catch the smaller, older engines at the head of suburban and country trains. They were all trains, and that was enough for now.”
― Eric Lomax, The Railway Man

“I find it difficult to remember all of the details of our journey after leaving Mannheim. At the time I was depressed and extremely tired. The children must have felt the same way since they were just there. The unflappable joy they always demonstrated and the sparkle in their eyes was missing. An unspeakable sadness had settled in. Being children they were being denied the right to be happy, to be able to celebrate their youth and look forward to a promising future. Now they hardly ever complained or cried. They sometimes said that they were hungry and asked if we had food, but accepted the fact that we were all hungry most of the time. My only vivid recollection is that we were headed towards the Bodensee, or what is called Lake Constance, near the Swiss border. The only reason we were going there was that it seemed rural, and more distant from the advancing front and active war zone. Perhaps I felt that neutral Switzerland was close by and if need be we could appeal to someone’s compassion and escape. Of course this was only a fleeting thought and could never happen…. It also never occurred to me that our train could become an inviting target for an Allied airplane.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Suppressed I Rise"

“«Tú eres su víctima, tú estás en su compartimiento (no es él quien está en el tuyo) y te invita a beber vodka como si te ofreciera su propia sangre»”
― Daniel Utrilla, A Moscú sin Kaláshnikov

“তখন আমি বেশ তরুণ ছিলুম
আমি সবে ষোলো বছরের হবো হয়তো কিন্তু ছেলেবেলার স্মৃতি মুছে গিয়েছিল
যেখানে জন্মেছিলুম সেখান থেকে ৪৮,০০০ মাইল দূরে
আমি ছিলুম মসকোতে, তিনঘণ্টির হাজার মিনার
আর সাতটা রেলস্টেশান
আর ওই হাজার আর তিন মিনার আর সাতটা রেলস্টেশান
আমার জন্যে যথেষ্ট ছিল না
কারণ আমি ছিলুম গরমমেজাজ আর পাগল তরুণ
আমার হৃদয় ইফিসিয়াসের মন্দির কিংবা
মসকোর রেড স্কোয়ারের মতন ছিল তপ্ত
সূর্যাস্তের সময়ে
আর আমার দুই চোখ ওই পুরোনো রাস্তা-ধরে চলার সময়ে জ্বলজ্বল করতো
আর আমি আগেই এমন খারাপ কবি ছিলুম
যে আমি জানতুম না তা কেমন করে নিজের সঙ্গে বয়ে নিয়ে যাই”
― Blaise Cendrars

“She knew there was a big Chicago
far off, where all the trains ran.”
― Carl Sandburg

“For many country folk, the railway was Paris. Its gleaming tracks brought tales of success, prosperity and realised dreams to the provinces, qualities with which the capital was increasingly seen as synonymous. For a countrywoman like Madeleine, short on money and luck, overworked, and whose future appeared only to offer more of the same, those dazzling steel tracks represented a chance. All at once, resignation turned to hope. Suddenly, Madeleine could see clearly. If she stayed in Bessines, her future was mapped out – and it was bleak. But if she boarded the train to Paris, anything was possible – perhaps even happiness. Jeanne and Widow Guimbaud were horrified when, not five years after Marie-Clémentine’s birth, Madeleine announced that her mind was made up: she was going to start a new life in Paris.”
― Catherine Hewitt, Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon

“The law of 11 June 1842 establishing the French railroad system was passed in the same year as a train accident killed forty persons on the short line to Versailles. The controversial new legislation provided government guarantees to private investors, as well as state aid for the construction of a rail network radiating out from Paris. The law of 11 June also sparked a railway boom that attracted investors and was popular with the public. A second railway bill was passed in 1846, promising additional expansion. The father of the teenage artist Gustave Dore, for example, was a state- trained and -paid civil engineer assigned to survey the route of a future line between Lyon and Geneva.
(...)

...during the 1840s writers such as George Sand began to predict that the commercial impact of the railroad would quickly destroy the local customs and traditions that still regulated the culture of most of rural France.”
― Robert J. Bezucha, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“Vernet received his commission for this project in 1838, a year in which concessions for the construction of railroads were a subject of passionate debate, and many of the deputies were carried away by visions of the glorious future this new invention would usher in, typical of which was the speech of the director of bridges and railroads in which he proclaimed that, after the invention of the printing press, railroads represented the greatest advance in the history of civilization.
In response to this enthusiasm Vernet broke traditional rules of decorum in his enormous mural, combining classical figures and traditional allegorical emblems with products of the industrial revolution. In one section of his mural composition, usually entitled Le Génie de la Science (The genius of Science), a nude allegorical figure is seated in the foreground, one hand on an air pump, the other on an anvil, while a modern steam locomotive is driven toward a railroad tunnel in the background (see Figure 2-2). If Vernet had been limited to one symbol to characterize the social and economic reality of the July Monarchy, it is doubtful that he could have found a better one.”
― Michael Paul Driskel, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“It is perhaps not superfluous to point out here that throughout the 1830s and 1840s travel was still for the most part an activity for the rich or the adventurous. Most transportation on the European continent was by ship or mail coach, and it was time-consuming, expensive, and uncomfortable. Not until the emergence of the train did travel become an activity for the middle and lower middle class. Yet the railroads were still in their infancy under the July Monarchy. The first passenger railway was not built until 1837, and by 1840 only 433 kilometers of rail had been laid down. Then railroad building picked up speed; by 1848, 1,592 kilometers of rail lines were in use while 2,144 more were under construction. The railroads were to encourage yet a new kind of travel publication, the railroad guide or itinerary, which described and illustrated (in wood engravings or lithographs) the major sights along a particular line. However, this new type of publication, though it originated during the July Monarchy, did not become widespread until the Second Empire.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“[...Brer Rabbit] said his prayers over like a train of railroad cars running [...].”
― Joel Chandler Harris, Giant Treasury of Brer Rabbit

“The train’s doors closed with a matron’s shush.”
― Kevin Ansbro, The Fish That Climbed a Tree

“I decided to go because I had a free year.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster

“I had my own compartment - plenty of space, plenty of provisions, the grapes, cookies, chocolates and tea that made being on the Trans-Siberian like a luxurious form of convalescence.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster