Blow, Whistle, Steel Rails, Keep on Humming! (Kyle, Texas).

Our British trains are not so big as Texas ones.  On our travels, the nights were punctuated by those evocative whistle sounds, and the distant rumble of freight trains. I managed to ambush a typical one in Kyle, Texas, and film it as it restarted.

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I apologise for the wobbliness, it's pretty much the first time I'd ever used the video mode on the camera, and I'd only just rushed into position, moments before the train started to roll, frantically hitting buttons on the camera menu. The video is actually two videos spliced in the middle, I admit, I got tired and switched filming off for a while, as about half a mile of freight cars rolled by, so the train is actually several magnitudes bigger than my video suggests, though the clue's there in the five locomotives assigned to moving it, four headers, and one on the tail.
Yes, four headers. Count again, if you're muttering "there were only three!"....
 (Three yellow and one blue.)






Iron Lion

Now I've been an engine driver all of my days
That's the only thing I can do
I hold a good head of steam everywhere I'm seen
Wherever my wheels roll through
Wherever my wheels roll through

I was nearly shut down in a Midwest town
Her hair was red, her eyes were blue
But the wheels on the track kept calling me back
So I bid that girl adieu
Yes, I bid that girl adieu

Blow whistle, steel wheels keep on humming
Hold on darling your engine driver's coming
He's coming through

Some day I'll have to give up the iron lion
And then I'll know just what I will find
I'll find me some shack by that old railroad track
So I can hear them motors whine
So I can hear them motors whine

Blow whistle, steel rails keep on humming
Hold on darling your engineer is coming
He's coming through

I've been an engine driver all of my days
That's the only thing I can do
I hold a good head of steam anywhere I'm seen
Anywhere my trains roll through
Anywhere my trains roll through

Blow whistle, steel wheels keep on humming
Hold on girl, your engine driver's coming,
Coming to you.

Kyle has about the largest thrift store I've ever seen, in the old library building down by the tracks. But really, ladies, would you buy "pre-owned" underwear? At any price?

Kyle has some officially (in my books) cool characters. Here's one of them. He was advertising a garage sale. And he's cool.

And what more can an Englishman want of a little town in Texas at lunchtime than a cool little tea-room?  Olga's Tea Room, at The Motley Menagerie, an eclectic little store in a 1905 vintage minty-green and purple house. The home-made soup and fresh-baked bread were wonderful, as was that soothing tea.

It's hard to believe, but this place that looks like a junk-store/Antique Emporium is actually a hair salon in Kyle. Hair Topic Etc.

Fire Engine. Boys love fire-engines, I'm no exception. Clean and gleaming in an equally clean and gleaming new looking fire-house. And my respect to fire crews everywhere. I have friends alive now who would not be, were it not for guys like the ones who crew this truck.

The Old Rail Depot, Kyle.

The Old Caboose, Kyle. Sadly, a little vandalised.

Come on guys, fix the gutter, it's a pretty old building, it deserves a little care.

An old  caboose would just suit  as a bed'n'breakfast by the tracks.

A peppermint-coloured house with an old rusty tractor. Love it.

We had been told Kyle was not worth stopping at, just a place to pass through en-route to the Hill Country. I disagree, Kyle's a pretty little town, and those few people we met were friendly and smiling.