Passenger rail has always been about more than transportation. It connects people to places, communities to opportunity, and generations to experiences they’ll never forget.
We were deeply moved when a friend of All Aboard NC shared this poem inspired by his son’s first train ride through North Carolina. In just a few stanzas, it captures the sense of wonder, freedom, and possibility that rail travel can inspire.
First Journey
The horn calls out and echoes down the track,
Young Charlie grips the seat with eager hands,
The silver cars lurch forward, then lean back,
As humming wheels roll over iron lands.
From Raleigh’s station, bright with sunny light,
He watches as the city slowly thins,
Then Cary slides beneath the afternoon’s white
Wide sky — and so the wider world begins.
The red clay fields and farmhouses blur and race,
The cows stand still as if they’ve turned to stone,
A grin spreads wide across his joyful face—
He’s seven years old, and brave, and almost grown.
He counts the telephone poles as they fly,
And Durham’s rooftops flicker, fade, and fall,
He presses his small forehead to the sky-
Bright glass and tries to memorize it all.
In Burlington he spots a boy his age,
Who waves from where he stands beside the track,
Charlie raises his hand like some small sage
Of travel, and he proudly waves him back.
At last the brakes sigh soft along the bend,
As Greensboro’s grand station comes in view,
He tugs his father’s sleeve — “Can this not end?”
For he already loved what trains could do.
-NHE
