How to Talk to Trains

I’m currently doing research for a new project—research into trains, specifically—and my friendly local librarian has dug up a real treasure: a book for children called Train Talk: An Illustrated Guide to Lights, Hand Signals, Whistles, and other Languages of Railroading by Roger Yepsen. I would have loved this book when I was eight years old; I love it now.

It opens with the story of an Indiana farmer who is struck and killed by a train in 1920. The man turns out to be the author’s great-grandfather. “In spite of its air horns and bells and lights,” Yepsen writes, “a train ghosting down a hill can approach you as quietly as a cat.”

Though the story is intended to caution young readers, I can’t help but imagine Mr. Yepsen setting out to learn the language of locomotives with the story of his ancestor’s death in mind. He refers to the railroad as “a country that stretches from Atlantic to Pacific, from Central American jungle to Canadian tundra.” Catastrophe visited his family from that country, so he felt compelled to go there and learn its native tongue.

As for me, I’m just taking notes on color-light signals and semaphores. When I hear a train, it’s usually from a distance, or I’m riding in it.

Mr. Yepsen, are you out there? We grew up in the same part of the world and I like your map of the Lake Shore Limited.