taking a train

Hey, guys. Mike Walters here, host of the hit podcast WOE.BEGONE. I hope that you’ve been enjoying season 13 so far. I wanted to take a quick minute to tell you about one of our sponsors, takingatra.in. That takingatra-dot-in. The dot is in the middle of the word “train.” It’s a lot like WOE.BEGONE in that way [laughs.] The partnership between WOE.BEGONE and takingatra.in is a match made in heaven.

Takingatrain is a brand new social media platform for our post-social media world. I know what you’re thinking. There are too many social media websites as it is, but takingatrain is different. Too many social media websites these days are trying to do it all. They are all short form video-microblogging-messaging clones of one another. You end up stuck in an endless doomscroll, wasting hours of your time looking at what amounts to nothing at all. 

This is where takingatrain sets itself apart from the rest. Takingatrain has one and only one purpose: it allows you to share notifications with your friends when you or they are taking a train. It’s that simple. By game-ifying the act of taking a train, takingatrain hopes to engender enthusiasm about trains and revive a much-needed aspect of public infrastructure. They have partnered with train companies around the world to develop technology that allows the app to sync up with the onboard computers on the train, letting the user attach ride information to their posts and even to bypass the need for checking tickets. It’s all on the app.

And this isn’t me hocking some product that I’ve never used before. I put takingatrain to the test this past weekend when I needed to take a trip from Oldbrush Valley to [redacted]. It was an experience unlike any I have ever had. As soon as I stepped onto the train, I could feel the app working. It’s difficult to explain. I don’t know how I could feel it. I didn’t even have my phone out. I felt a sensation inside of my body, like electricity. I felt more alive, more present than I had been a moment earlier. I was taking a train. I felt light on my feet. I felt spiritually elevated, as though the train were some sort of loving god that was welcoming me inside.

Before I knew it, we were off. “How are we already moving?” I wondered. I only remembered walking onto the train. Now we were moving at full speed, the landscape screaming past us out the windows. It was a blur. I must have been so enraptured at taking a train that I let the interstitial moments slip away from me. We were full speed ahead of our destination. Oddly, I felt a quick pang of regret. It was too late to change course. What if I didn’t want to go to [redacted] after all? What if getting on the train was a mistake and it was too late to correct? These were ridiculous thoughts, obviously. Of course I wanted to get on the train. Of course I wanted to go to [redacted]. I’m the one that made the plans in the first place. I bought the train ticket, a ticket that no one checked because the takingatrain app checked it on behalf of the train. This regret was simply the anxiety that came from realizing that I am my own, adult person fully capable of making my own decisions, for better or worse. It was the insecurity or hurtling through the void. But I wasn’t hurtling through the void alone. I was taking a train. I took a deep breath in. The train exhaled for me. The anxiety exited with the breath, left behind in the landscape that screamed behind us.

Time passed. The sun set. I used to know where I was going. At least, I think I did. The train never stopped. It pressed onward into the darkness. The destination was a future consideration. The train was now. This moment existed outside of any correlation with a future moment designated “destination.” There was a woman sitting across from me. She wasn’t old, but she dressed in an older style, sort of like how I imagined that people dressed on trains in the olden days when trains were a more common form of transportation. We made eye contact and I smiled politely at her. I could not remember why she was in the train car with me. I remembered purchasing my ticket on the app. I purchased a private car so that I could travel in style. I wanted the best experience that takingatrain could offer. I do not remember letting her in. I do not remember if she introduced herself. I only remembered getting on the train and then the moment of myself becoming aware inside of the train car. I thought about asking her for her name. I thought about asking about where the train was going. I did neither. I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t remember. I thought that I would try and discover these things for myself before we arrived.