The Train

Please bear with me, because this post is likely going to make even less sense than they usually do.

In response to my post titled Underground, about subways, one person provided me with this link showing more excellence in subway stations. You have to understand that I grew up in New York City; for me, the subway is something that's crowded, occasionally dirty, occasionally hot, occasionally smelly. It does the job that it was built and cobbled together to do, but it's not pretty. When I first saw parts of the Boston subway -- especially the Green Line (I think) Park Street Station, which had bright colors, and was clean, I was amazed. Similarly, first time that I saw BART, or the DC Metro. Good lord. No wonder visitors to New York are startled and dismayed by the New York City subway system. Someone who grew up with those subways might not even recognize this as a subway, at all. It's not elegant.

Years ago, I read a science fiction story about aliens coming to Earth long after the last inhabitant had left. Some sort of cosmic catastrophe was about to occur, and the aliens wanted one last look at the fabled birthplace before it was utterly destroyed. Actually, as I think of it, the aliens might have been human descendants. Doesn't matter. At one point, they discover a hidden subway that ran from Washington DC, under the Atlantic, to England, for the personal and private use of the President. They board it, and the doors close quietly, the air blowers kick up a muted notch, and the car begins to move -- down, down, down, until it's well below the city and all of it's contents. The tunnel walls blur by; a display shows them deep below the Atlantic. Halfway through the trip, the aliens get a message from the orbiting ship. Things are suddenly worse; you'd better get out of there. Still two hours till they make landfall. No problem. They stop the car and get out. Deathly quiet but for the humming of the car's power. The tunnel stretches out to either side, the walls curving up in both directions in the muted light. They wait. After a moment a beam weapon bores down to their location, blocking out the water and allowing the aliens to safely return to their ship. The beam is withdrawn, and the water rushes in.

Occasionally, when I think of subways, I think of the almost ethereal simplicity of that stopped subway car and that quiet tunnel stretching coolly up and out of sight. It's an elegant image.

I'd love to have seen it.