Railroad Museum
I loved everything about the railroad: the sounds of locomotives chuffing, the moans of their whistles, the smell of coal smoke. I loved standing on the platform next to the locomotive, wreathed in warm, damp steam, suddenly startled by a blast from a relief valve. I loved the sounds of the train pulling out of the station, driver wheels skidding accompanied by a rapid series of exhalations—chuff... chuff... chuffchuffchuffchuff... chuff... chuff; the sounds of slack being drawn out of the couplers—clack-clack-clack-clunk-clunk.
Occasionally my father would take me on the most exciting of adventures: riding the train to New york City. After an hour which I spent with my nose pressed to the window, we'd get off at the Hoboken Terminal and take the steam ferry across the Hudson River to Canal Street in Manhattan. On the way back, we'd stop in the oyster bar in Hoboken and eat 5¢ oysters until I felt sick, while waiting for our train home.
All too soon, the steam era ended, replaced by diesel-electrics.
Railroads never were the same for me. The change had to come: steam locomotives were inefficient and polluting. But to me they were romantic. These days, whenever I travel to a place that has a train museum, visiting it becomes a top priority.
The Museo del Ferrocarril in Madrid is a good one.
On entering the museum building (an old railroad station), I was greeted by this sweet little 0-4-0 switch engine.
It hardly seems big enough to pull anything, but it was used to make up trains in Spanish switchyards a century ago. The restoration work is exquisite, and typical of all of the exhibits.
A brilliantly executed cutaway locomotive allows the mechanically-minded to examine the workings of a golden-age steam locomotive.
I spent a long time minutely tracing energy flows in this specimen.
The museum contains maybe 20 locomotives and even more rolling stock. It's not in the same class as that greatest of railway museums, the National Railway Museum in York, England, but you can easily spend a day exploring this one.
Like any good railway museum, exhibits cover more than the trains themselves: baggage handlers, for example.
Burlap sacks and brown paper packages tied with rope—a far cry from today's corrugated cardboard boxes with styrofoam inserts. Someone chose to depict the handlers as happy souls, the one on the left with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Verisimilitude at the expense of political correctness. If this place were in Indianapolis, you'd have a concerned parent's group raising hell over that cigarette.
Advertising posters, to today's travelers, seem transparent in their approach to luring customers.
"The courtesy of Spain and the train at your service"—¡Tu abuela! Once you've ridden the railroad in Spain or encountered a waiter in Madrid, you get a whole new understanding of the expression at your service. Or the word courtesy for that matter. In the USA—maybe. In Morocco—absolutely. In Spain—puhleeze.
(The figure in the poster isn't exactly a paragon of masculinity, is he? I mean, just what was the artist trying to say here? And who in Renfe management approved this thing anyway?)
Hundreds of other artifacts of belle époque industry are on display. They don't make 'em like this filigreed magneto telephone anymore. No batteries needed! Just turn the crank and talk. A simpler era indeed. Cell phones work better, but once again, no romance.
On the right, an ornately gilded device for impressing embossed seals into tickets. To discourage counterfeiting.
Much railroad building was financed through a national lottery. You turned the crank of this machine to mix and draw lottery numbers, presumably in front of impartial witnesses.
For some reason, this magnificent Fargo truck is included in the collection.
No plaque or placard explains why it's here, but for my money, you could show it in the Prado and I'd be delighted with it.
Hundreds of toy trains are on display. Not scale models—toys. Overlooked by most railroad museums.
They bring back memories of the Lionel electric trains I got for Christmas. Sometimes, my dad would even give me a turn with them.
Below, a box for a train set—an example of truly awful product packaging art.
Lets face it: Your pubescent sister just isn't gonna show that kind of interest in your train set. She's got other things on her mind. And your little brother in the blue shirt—what exactly is he thinking? Mom and dad better take him to the psychologist before things get out of hand. (Kid looks like Jack Nicholson.)
This is the way a passenger car is supposed to look. Classy. Not like some cheap piece of extruded aluminum.
It's the only thing in the whole museum that interested Jean, standing here checking it out.
The passenger car serves as the Museum coffee shop.
Weird, huh? I mean the passenger sitting at her dining car table with its elegant little lamp, talking on her cell phone—a jarring anachronism.
We visited the Railroad Museum on a Saturday, when admission is free. Got there just as it opened. By early afternoon, families had arrived and the place was crawling with kids. They were having a great time. Their fathers were having an even better time. And it was time for us retired folks to go.
I wonder what this place means to those children? Maybe no more than a museum full of 18th-century furniture means to me: interesting, but not connected to my past. The Museo del Ferrocarril, on the other hand, plays strongly into my childhood. For me, visiting these places is always an emotional experience.