Aesthetics of Walking: Walking along the Railway

In the past, when there was no fence on the railway, taking photos along the railway was always a photographic format, and many people had such photos. Rails can form a sense of perspective because of their infinite extension in two directions, which is a rare exception in cities with dense buildings and few deep horizons.

Infinite extension, extending to the distance that is gradually invisible, is a simile and metaphor displayed by the railway; All the unsatisfied things in real life, all the feelings that are not fully displayed at present, and all the yearning for the future can give people some answers through the imagination brought by the extension of the railway.

This kind of answer is silent, but it is a psychological transformation that human beings automatically realize because of their visual feelings, but it always makes people poetic in an instant. Since the birth of the railway, people at home and abroad have enjoyed it from generation to generation. All countries in the world have accidents caused by taking photos and taking selfies on the railway side. People with strong emotional textures like Anna Catalina and Haizi all chose the unfinished railway tracks as their homes ... Railway is probably the greatest aesthetic created by industrial society except cars. It is not only large in size and space, but also because it has penetrated into ordinary life and become a scene and background that people can often see in their daily lives.

However, in this era when most railways have been strictly closed because of speed increase, it is not easy to take a photo with the railway. Only the suburban feeder railway, which mainly focuses on freight transportation, has a huge load, dozens of carriages hanging, and the driving speed is slow. When passing through an unguarded crossing without railings, it just honks its horn. On the gravel side of the railway, a path for bicycles and electric vehicles naturally formed.

In the long days when the epidemic is lingering and villages are forbidden to travel, it is difficult to travel far in the fields. Naturally, walking along the railway is an unrestricted free path choice.

Walking on the path next to the railway, the rust color of the railway was washed down by rain and snow, and the reddish-brown color dyed the gravel and path red, which will soon dye people's feet. This illusion makes people laugh and feel the need to speed up. Raising your eyes is a good way to avoid this involuntary acceleration: I saw the shining line on the top of the rusty railway, precisely the line directly above the two rails, extending from a distance and shining; Extending far away, it still shines.

From a distance, the shiny railway seems to extend all the way into the Woods. If you don't look at the Woods carefully, you can't see any changes in spores on the branches, which are still grayish yellow. The green of the wheat field between trees is old green, and the old green has been doped with quite fresh ingredients.

The cold in early spring restrained their impulse to turn green quickly. The cold spring is even more spring, and the place where spring grows has the delicate feeling of spring. In arid areas like the north, spring is short, there is no water and vegetation, and the temperature rises rapidly.

Cold is the inevitable quality of a slightly longer spring. Only the spring in arid areas will reach the designated position in one step in the process of excessive temperature rise, directly increasing the temperature by more than ten degrees and twenty degrees, and entering the summer mode without transition. In the hiking format along the railway, there are more opportunities to experience the cold in early spring, which is an automatic extension of personal feelings about spring. The choice of hiding in the house in cold weather is the result of human self-restriction, which will pay the price of shortening the season and losing feelings.

In the cold of early spring, the railway inclines across the earth, across the fields between villages, avoiding the clips of tents, tables and armbands, and avoiding the local policy of adding more yards as long as you are not from the village, even if you are not an acquaintance, and moving freely in the low-risk area of the epidemic. This walking theory can go on indefinitely, except that people who ride electric cars occasionally pass by because of the narrow path. You can walk from village to village, cross a river, gradually walk into the mountains from the plain, and walk from familiar places to unfamiliar places. This yearning for strange situations inspires people, and the terrain transformation between mountains and plains attracts people. However, at the moment when a train finally came face to face, in the cab at the front of the car, I read something I already knew and turned a blind eye to it. Although it is probably the serenity and calmness of concentrating on driving, he must have been used to watching the scenes along the way repeatedly, paying attention to where the next intersection is and where to whistle in advance. He should always remind the vehicles and pedestrians at the intersection that the train is coming.

The train is coming, and the train is running in the field. It is a monster different from nature. It is dark and rough, breathless, majestic and magnificent. When it approaches, it can still make people who are already familiar with the train feel sudden fear. If you don't have a fixed track and are sure that you won't go beyond it, I believe it is unsustainable to walk on such a short path. When you see the train in the distance and hear the rumbling and shocking sound, you will definitely run away. Because according to the accumulated experience of human beings in nature, such a huge existence, its sphere of influence and radius of activity are quite extensive, and it must be an offense to dare to approach it so close.

Of course, when a human-controlled train running on a given track comes, it is still necessary to stop moving, try to avoid some, leave the path and hide in the fields on the roadside, at least let the head side face the opposite direction of the railway. Although such instinctive measures are actually of little help to the legendary flying stone threat brought by train operation. Fortunately, the freight frequency of this railway is very low, and there may not be a train passing by after walking for an hour or two. Otherwise, it is really a road that cannot be chosen.

Walking on the path beside the railway, you will find the removed dark sleepers embedded directly on the roadside as building materials to protect the subgrade. Today's sleepers are more durable parts made of cement. These black sleepers remind people that for a long period of history, railways have been maintained by wood. These sleepers were treated at the beginning of use: soaked in the mixed solution of coal tar and anthracene oil at high temperature and high pressure, and the wood was soaked by preservatives, which became very hard and not perishable, but its life was still limited. They are often taken away after regular replacement, but this time cement sleepers were replaced. Obviously, the original sleepers have no recycling value, and the recycling value is far less than the freight and labor, so they are directly treated on the spot.

When the railway runs between mountains and plains, it always walks on the flat ground. On the flat land, there is the vast North China Plain on one side and the winding Taihang Mountain on the other. Between the mountains and the plains, that's where you live and that's where you spend most of your life. Today, walking along the railway, all the distant poems and paintings, all the world changes accompanied by the cold wind in early spring, can be slowly understood, chewed and dissipated.