Stopped in My Tracks

During the early afternoon on July 10, 2011, I was driving east on State Highway 411 toward Johnson City when I noticed a billboard on the right hand side of the highway. Designed as a split screen, to the left was a familiar but haunting visual: a sign bedecked in flowers by the side of a railroad tracks adorned in the fashion of a roadside tribute, as seen frequently at the sight of traffic accidents in which people lose their lives. The copy to the right read in bold block letters, “Raced train. Lost.” It was an enormously effective display in that the message was conveyed simply, starkly and quickly. Coming from a region of the country in which, apart from commuter Amtrak trains, freight trains and their tracks are much less rarely seen, I didn’t fully envision how and with what frequency such “races” are run until Marci explained to me a few days later about what is a fairly common, highly dangerous practice here in the Johnson City region. The billboard sought to discourage the phenomena with sparse words and ominous visual. It certainly made an impression on me.