View From The Tracks

Pat Walters: Silver Star No. 91 screamed as it hurtled the tracks from Jacksonville to Tampa one day last fall. One and a half thousand tons of smooth, silver metal moving at freeway velocity, 79 miles per hour, 6,952 feet per minute, a football field every 21/2 seconds. The shrubs that lined the rail bed shivered as it tore past.



Inside the locomotive, engineer Billy Parker worked the controls. He wore pressed slacks and a Polo shirt.



Less than a quarter mile from the N 62nd Street crossing at CSX Intermodal in east Tampa, Parker pressed the button that blows the horn. It was an ordinary act, on an ordinary stretch of track. Two long blasts, a short one and another long.