Remembering old Days of Strength

The days long past - those were days of strength.  The winds blew the grasses of Montana plains and hot winds raced down the rain shadows of the Rockies in those days.  Overhead the skies were blue to the horizons or clouded over with the power of racing summer storms.  Between the heavens and the earth were the unbroken wires that made America's last Transcontinental Railroad unique in the lexicon of US transportation.

The hum of traction motors could be heard rolling tonnage west to the Continental Divide in those days.  Alongside the Northern Pacific and the Jefferson River it chased the grade laid out for it decades before.  These were days of strength: days when steel wheels rolled over the steel rails and the thought of weakness awaiting at the door seemed like something impossible.  How could the end of strength come?  How could the overhead power that supplied 5000Hp Little Joes ever grow cold?  How could a Thunderhawk no longer run, nor the hum of electric motors and blow of cooling fans ever cease?  But those were old days of strength and for everything and for each of us, it seems they are but a breath.

Rolling into Sappington (above) the Milwaukee is 1462 miles from Chicago. As the old bridge that spans the right of way clearly shows, she is under wire.  Here are the vestiges of strength in a system designed not to fail.  Designed to be better than the others, to go farther, and to achieve more.  Like a runner trained for a race, the remains still show an athlete ready to run the gauntlet.

And like an athlete, the days of strength are fleeting.  I sit as I write this in a hospital bed and remember the days of youth when, not long ago it seems, I awoke with the sun and could rely on my own strength to achieve the goals of the day.  I did not hurt, I did not stumble, and I was not thoughtful that those were days that would be fleeting.  Now I gaze upon the relics of the past that loom large in these photos and haunt my mind and ponder how days change so swiftly.  The sun rises one morning, and on that very day, everything changes in an instant.

But be of good courage dear reader, it is better to know of our weakness so that the we may seek where real and lasting Strength come from.  The Lord can and will sustain you with real Strength and real Courage even when days of strength close.  Now, I think I appreciate those days of old even more, and appreciate the gift of walking through them even as I look back and wonder at how even the mighty have fallen.