Brain on a Train -- Umberto Tosi
"I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it," wrote Paul Theroux welcoming us succinctly aboard The Great Railway Bazaa r. "Trains sing bewitchment," Theroux added at the start of a four-month rail journey from London through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, returning via the Trans-Siberian Railway. His 1975 armchair classic depicts people, history, and cultures, more than trains and never complains about difficult accommodations. "If a train is large and comfortable you don't even need a destination." ...I concur. I've set a few of my stories on trains, including Onion Station (published in Chicago Quarterly Review and in my anthology, Sometimes Ridiculous ). The tale is told from the perspective of a boy on a 1940s transcontinental train trip stopover with his warring mother and father in Chicago. It's taken from life -- an episode in a forthcoming novella largely set on rocking ra...