Back in the day, my mother would take me to work with her -- her father owned a kitchen supply store that was four parking places from the old Wabash that ran through town in Central Illinois. I'd be in the bassinet, and when the train approached the crossing and the "ding-dings" sounded, it woke me up. Almost 60 years later, I've continued to be a rail foamer (or, as my brother would term it, "uselessly fixated").