Whale Songs

Last night after I went to see a movie I came out into the frigid Antwerp, winter air to catch a bus back home, though I missed it by just a minute, and the next one was not for another twenty minutes. As it was well below freezing, I figured that walking along the bus route would be better than standing still at a single bus stop, so I set off. As I was at the Centraal train station, the bus route runs southerly down the spoorweg (tracks) of the trains. Centraal station is one of the most beautiful train stations in the world, and has many times over been voted as such. Though I know that there are many main world train stations I have not yet been to, of those dozens that I have (and several on the top 10 list), Antwerp’s definitely deserves such praise.

Inside, its main foyer is reminiscent of a large Baroque cathedral, though with a lofty domed ceiling, so, like much of Antwerp’s architecture, it is a mixture of aesthetics. The train galley itself is nothing short of stunning, with high, vaulted glass and steel walls and ceiling rising far above the trains, dwarfing them to look like toy trains a child might play with. The space is daunting even more so now that they opened up two lower layers to accommodate the high-speed trains on the lowest level and mid-city trains on the second, while the more regional ones are often on the top level, so as not having to travel underground for any period of time.  

Like many major train stations, it originally was a terminus, where all the trains had to stop, and then later reverse direction to depart. The two lower levels now make Antwerp a mere on/off place where trains traveling from Paris can merely stop, unload and then close the doors and continue on in the same direction towards Amsterdam, for example. However, the top level is still a terminus, with enormous shock absorbers at the end of each spoor (track) in case a train’s brakes are not sufficient to stop it, or perhaps a miscue by an engineer.

But, it is not just the inside of the train station that is so impressive. The entire structure has just completed a 15-year renovation on all levels, and that includes one of its most impressive features, the nearly two mile elevated stone structure that leads all departing tracks to Berchem station. For the entire length of this route, the elevated rail system is supported by a series of arches and is capped off with what looks almost like a fortress complete with small towers every some-odd meters. It is something very easy to take for granted on a daily basis, but when you really appreciate the vastness of this rail system, it is quite impressive.

As I was then walking along, just reaching the part where the trains come in, I heard the song of the rails. There have been lots of songs written about trains, mostly nostalgic, such as Steve Goodman's “City of New Orleans,” bemoaning the end of an era. However, the real music of trains is the trains themselves. I am glad that my daughter has had the chance to experience the enchantment of trains, and though they are no longer the old steam engines, every now and then, one will pull into Antwerp’s Centraal, and then one can really imagine the excitement and awe of a train. The blast from a steam-engine train at full throttle inside the station is one of the loudest things I have ever heard. That, too, is music, not just the pleasant clickity-clacks along the tracks. Also, the exhaustive decompression of the airbrakes from the hulking beasts, waiting their turn to get back on the way. The whistles of the conductors. The hissing of the hydraulics opening and closing the doors. The echoes of travelers, commuters, and vagabonds. The indecipherable blasts over the intercom of inevitable track changes. All of this is one big cacophonic masterpiece.

However, the one part of this music I love best is the haunting whale songs of the trains coming in, with their brakes grinding and when the metal on metal of the wheels to the tracks hits a certain frequency, you can imagine these trains singing like two giant blue whales under the ocean to each other. It is eerie, and on a night like last night, when the rails were very cold, and the trains coming in began the approach, this banshee-like baleen opera begins, and literally gave me chills, and that was not just the freezing wind at my back. The moans and groans of the friction were sublime.

It reminded me of the first time that I came to Antwerp over 20 years ago (actually, the second time, but the first time to live here). I was part of a European Studies program for languages and literature and I arrived early to check out the town. As I was not affiliated with a school at the time, I had to secure my own lodging for the year. I had booked myself into a youth hostel in the meantime while I was searching. Though called a youth hostel, it was actually more of a half-way house for Northern African Muslims from Morocco, Tunisia, Tangiers, Libya, and so forth. I am pretty sure I was about the only Westerner there that week. So, it was a bit of a shock to check in, and whenever I told people where I was staying, they looked at me as if I had lost my mind (I get that a lot).

To get there, I had to walk along this same track system. However, in 1992, no renovation had begun, and Antwerp was a bit more of a backwater, grimy port city than the world city it is again today. 500 years ago, Antwerp was THE city, but it fell to shambles for a couple hundred years. Regardless, it was pretty grimy and impressive not for its beauty, but for its decay along this mighty railroad. I was also staying on “the wrong side of the tracks.” It gave me an impression of Antwerp that most of the other students in the program never saw, and at present cannot see in that part of town. Yet, what remained the same, was I was just as transfixed by the sounds of the trains above me. So, much may change, but there is always something at the core in which the song does remain the same.