How I Raced a Train and Lost

[photo by SP8254]

I grew up in a small town in northeast Ohio. Our primary form of entertainment in the winter was throwing snowballs at passing cars and in the summer riding an inner tube down the Cuyahoga River. My friend Matt lived at the top of a small rise and the road sloped steeply downward as it approached the bridge crossing the Cuyahoga. On the other side of the bridge, the road crossed a set of railroad tracks before heading back uphill into downtown Kent.

One afternoon Matt pulled ahead of me as we rode our bicycles toward downtown. In the mind of a teenage boy that could only mean one thing, we were having a race. I immediately began to pedal harder and as we both picked up speed on the downhill I pulled alongside him. I knew he would be thirsting to overtake me so I didn’t let up; without looking at each other we increased our tempo in unison. And then we heard the whistle of an oncoming train.

It was still out of sight to our right, hidden by trees but we knew it was close. We flew past the library and didn’t slow down as we crossed River Street. By now we could see the train approaching and the caution gates came down across Main Street as the lights flashed their warning in time with the clanging bells. Matt eased up as he took in the situation but I maintained my momentum from the hill and watched the train close on the intersection.

I was actually thinking quite clearly. I was no longer interested in beating Matt; I wanted to beat the train. I knew it would not take long for me to stop if I needed to so I began to estimate the closure rate of the train on the intersection comparing it to my own, and all the while keeping in mind the point at which I needed to commit to the crossing or begin braking in earnest. I was neither panicked nor worried, merely curious about the outcome.

Can we view ourselves objectively?

There were cars lined up on both sides of the road and as I moved into the left lane it became apparent to the oncoming cars I had no intention of stopping. They began honking their horns wildly. The conductor, too close now to stop in time, pulled his whistle in one long, continuous blast. I was committed now to crossing the tracks and pressed on. In a moment it was over, I flew across the tracks and the train rumbled loudly past.

On the other side people were angrily yelling at me from their cars. They appeared to be quite agitated, which made me wonder what they had to be concerned about. After all, none of them were going to get hurt if I didn’t make it. Nevertheless I felt chastened and waited for Matt just around the corner of Water Street, out of sight so as to not inflame anyone’s ire.

When Matt rounded the corner he was shaking his head but he had that silly grin he got whenever I did something dangerously funny for his benefit. That’s what I was waiting for. That was the payoff. Those angry motorists could hang themselves, at that moment I was happy to see Matt laugh. But that was the relationship we had; Matt needed to be entertained and I needed to be appreciated. It was a dysfunctional relationship but a comfortable one.

It’s this memory and others like it that make me chide my younger self, what were you thinking? As if somehow I’ve moved past such craziness, that somehow my maturity guarantees me freedom from idiocy. If I’m honest with myself I have to admit I still take unnecessary risks in the name of entertainment or for a challenge or to impress those whose opinions I value. I still make asinine investments in products, ideas, and people.

Was it worth it?

The phrase that keeps coming back to me when I consider the risks that didn’t pay off is: Was it worth it? Not as in, was it worth it to race the train and win, but as in, would it have been worth it to have raced the train and lost? Was the thrill, or victory, or praise worth the risk of dying? The problem is, you can’t ask that after the fact. Once it’s over it simply is what it is, there’s no decision to be made. The question needs to take place before the attempt and the answer needs to consider the cost. The answer needs to be true regardless of the outcome.

You can’t attempt something and say later, when things don’t turn out well, it wasn’t worth the effort. The effort is not expended only in the event of a win, the effort is expended for the chance of a win and winning or losing has no bearing on the appropriateness of the cost.

The moment I decided to race the train I both won and lost to some degree depending on how you want to calculate the odds. If there were a 95% chance I’d make it*, the moment I committed to the attempt I committed to losing one time in twenty. For every twenty people who attempt to beat the train one of them won’t make it.

(*This is an arbitrary number for illustrative purposes only. I have no idea what the actual chances of getting hit by a train are.)

For this one person, the failure was realized but every one of the twenty had the same chance of failing. And at the moment those twenty boys started riding toward twenty trains we have no way of knowing which one will be the unfortunate one. So the expected benefit must be worth it for both success and failure at the moment of departure.

The moment I decided to race the train I both won and lost. But only the win was realized.