I think the very name of the track is what imparts so much mystery. The Trans-Siberian Railway; named after a place in the most remote reach of the world; a geographic location that seems never to be visited by people, but for those zooming one meter over the earth in a steel car; a place that seems only to exist in fables, foreign films, and Paul Theroux passages. A land that lives in dreams; images and pictures passing by in a blur of white and muted green outside double-paned glass; a nocturnal world of lunar reflections, a secret lake the looking glass of a crater-pocked moon.
The deep reverberation of steel on steel, the jarring click-clack of bindings, the creaking of the top-heavy hypnotic sway—these are the echoes of old days, frozen winters of clearing ice and laying track. The infiniteness of travel, the possibility of exploration and innovation, the curiosity of man is embedded in each crossbar of the railway. The spirit of expired adventurers, hopeful beginnings and painful endings, the souls of risk-takers and dreamers live on the Trans-Siberian. How many eyes have gazed upon these hills, these trees? How many bags have been toted over this stripe of rocks, how many farewells whispered through these windows?
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