Riding on a Railroad Train
by Ogden Nash

Some people like to hitch and hike; they are fond of highway travel; their nostrils toil through gas and oil, they choke on dust and gravel. Unless they stop for the traffic cop their road is a fine-or-jail road, but wise old I go rocketing by; I'm riding on the railroad. I love to loll like a limp rag doll in a peripatetic salon; to think and think of a long cool drink and cry to the porter, allons! Now the clikety clack of wheel on track grows clikety clackety clicker: the line is clear for the engineer and it mounts to his head like liquor. Oh give me steel from roof to wheel, but a soft settee to sit on and a cavalcade of commerce and trade and a drummer to turn the wit on. Stuyvesant chats with Kelly and Katz, the professor warms to the broker, and life is good in the brotherhood of an air-conditioned smoker. With a farewell scream of escaping steam the boiler bows to the Diesel; the Iron Horse has run its course and we ride a chromium weasel. We draw our power from the harnessed shower, the lightning without the thunder, but a train is a train and will so remain while the rails glide glistening under. Oh, some like trips in luxury ships, and some in gasoline wagons, and others swear by the upper air and the wings of flying dragons. Let each make haste to indulge his taste, be it beer, champagne, or cider; my private joy, both man and boy, is being a railroad rider.