In Search of My Train

Saturday, January 18, 2025 

Despite living in the Milwaukee suburbs — my world is not a quiet one. Whether it’s the birds chirping or the furnace running, there is always a continuous background noise.

The exception to this is one moment each night when I’m in bed waiting for sleep to find me. It is during this moment where, assuming the wind isn’t blowing, that I hear real silence.

It is also during this time that my silence is interrupted by the train.

My house is 3.20 miles / 5.1 kilometers from the train track. And if I’m awake at 10:45pm to hear it, a train routinely passes by with a telltale rumble and the occasional whistle.

I like scheduled routine and the repetition of this occurrence has become a comforting one. Yet at the same time I find myself wondering each night where the train is going and what is it carrying.

It turns out that those aren’t easily answerable questions.

Starting with the first question. Where is this train going?

According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation – the railroad line I hear is the Canadian National. More specifically it is a line called the Waukesha Subdivision with a terminus in Chicago in the south and Fond du Lac in the north. It was built between 1882 and  1886.

photo of Canadian National Railway courtesy of Cr4410 on Wikipedia

 Finding that answer took all of three minutes on Google. 

Okay then second question — what is the train carrying?

I can start by telling you what it isn’t transporting: people. <insert rant on Wisconsin and the USA in general having pitifully few rail options connecting metropolitan areas>

So cargo it is then. Of which it could be any number of things. Timber, fertilizer, grain, chemicals. I’m not sure I can definitively learn the answer. 

While we have tools at our fingertips to track planes (FlightAware) and ships (MarineTraffic), there is no resource I could find that will do the same for trains. Even if I was to go stake out where the train passed all I would see is a long stream of mysterious box cars appearing and quickly fading away.

And not knowing is okay with me. My world is a better place with the sound of it’s passing through my corner of the world each night.