Switching at Night

I live about 6 miles from a construction material yard. In the yard are thousands of tons of different size stones, including the different gradient concrete aggregates and the crushed limestone for road base. Railroad tracks are in the yard, which allows storage as rail cars are unloaded. They're called unit trains and they're usually somewhere around 100 hopper cars filled with about 100 tons in each car. It's how railroad companies ship such things, and unless a supplier has the facility, the supplier is forced to buy the material from a supplier that does have the facilities to handle a unit train. Unless the supplier has equipment to dump the cars, a contractor with specialized equipment unloads the car by either a clam-shell bucket attached to an excavator, or the excavator travels up a ramp, straddles the sides of the car, and the operator moves down the cars while unloading to either trucks, or to where front end loaders can stack the material. 

Tonight, as I was sitting on the porch after midnight, I heard the low rumble of the train engines. If I had to guess, they were either delivering filled cars, or removing those already empty. The low rumble would fluctuate as the engines revved to handle the increased load on the friction motors. When the train was ready to leave, I heard the engineer sound the horn. One long blast, then another long blast, a short blast, and the final long blast. I was told this is a cadence for "The train is coming". The damp, cool night air allowed a clear sound. For someone not knowing what it was, the low sound would be missed in the other background noises of the night. 

The rumble of the cars slowly faded as the train moved away. I listened longer, and two owls called to each other. The male would call, and the female would answer. Their call disturbed a neighbor's dog, which barked a warning for good cause. 

The dew is light tonight. That's usually an indication of rain in the near future, which matches the forecast. We have a stationary front sitting on top of us, and the uplift between the two air masses will lead to showers. So far, heavy rain isn't forecast, but than can change. Stationary fronts have led to torrential downpours in the past, and the low pressure impulses along the front can lead to some areas getting rainfalls in double digits. 

So, Summer is starting to fade. How much time before we have the first strong cold front is unknown, but the event is inevitable. The night temperature will drop to well below seventy degrees, the air will become dry, and the promise of cold days will become reality. I'm ready for it. Yard work won't be necessary, the insects will disappear, and the cool, clear nights will offer stargazing.