Coal+Train+II+BD

Coal Train II Analysis by Brittany Douthwright

This story is the most dense and complex I have ever read by McPhee. This was by-far not the easiest read for me. I found myself skimming over it the first time, because of its complexity, and this caused me to have to read it twice, just so I could understand it.

What I mean by dense is, full of detail, and I mean complex as in, somewhat difficult. The lead is a great example of this. Read this once and tell me if you have an easy time understanding this:

"(An armadillo is a van sent out on highways to replace train crews whose regulated hours of service have run out. Dick Eisfeller makes and sells Warholian movies of freight trains. Scott Davis is an enginner, Paul Fitzpatrick a conductor. Their routine "turn" is between North Platte, Nebraska, and Marysville, Kansas, on the Union Pacific Railroad. A manifest train has varied types of cars and cargoes. An intermodal train carries containers, often double-stacked. "Consist" is a railroad term for what a train is carrying. Bailey Yard, in North Platte, is the largest railroad yard in the world. On a January morning, Davis and Fitzpatrick are about to leave Bailey Yard in CNAMR, a nineteen-thousand-ton coal train, on its way east from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, locus of the largest coal mines on earth.)"

This is a little much for a lead if you ask me. First of all, I am not passionate about the subject of coal trains, perhaps this is why this article got on my nerves a bit. But for me, this lead introduced to much information to grab my attention. I had a bunch of questions as I was reading through. What is Warholian movies, and what do they have to do with coal trains? What is a routine "turn"? Why is "consist" a railroad term? What is a railroad yard? Why do trains have names like, CNAMR, and what do they mean? (gosh this confused me while reading, almost to the point where it pissed me off). What is the Powder River Basin of Wyoming?

There was too much information to make me want to read the rest of the story, but I already began at this point so I kept reading, and getting more pissed off.