Adventures in Electricity

Part 5

Rolling to my side, I felt too excited to sleep and thought about the adventures of my family. Out of all the stories, I had always loved Great Great Grandpa's one the most. I mean, it doesn't get more exciting than operating a brand new train that you helped build! I guessed Grandpa kind of did it as well at one point, but steam trains are just much cooler than the ones we have now. You get to shovel coals instead of just pressing buttons, and then you get smoke rising out of the chimney. Not to mention the hoot-hoot noises.

Then I suddenly remembered the cool new train that Dad told me about, the ones that levitate and can go way faster than normal trains. Dad had explained to me how it worked: with magnets and repulsion and what not. Something about not having wheels makes it go quicker. But it's expensive to build the tracks and train, which sounded a lot like the whole deal with electric train again to me. I wanted to see one in real life, but Dad told me they were only in operation in two countries in the world right now: China and Japan. I could only imagine how cool the trains looked, with a bullet head and streamlined shape – gliding across the track soundlessly like something out of a futuristic movie. Dad then said that many countries, including the US, are planning to build Maglev trains and I couldn't wait until the day I get to ride on one.

He also told me a lot of other things about what he was working on too: like the engines that would release exhaust that's environmentally friendly without using some convertor thingy that filters the air released from the engine first. I learned about how bad exhaust fumes were in school the other day, and I told Dad that maybe I should take the bus to school. Then he told me we used an electric car so I didn't have to worry. That kind of took the fun out of it, but he promised to let me plug in the charger of the car next time. Dad said the engine they made is called Evolution series Tier 4, which sounded really cool. I saw a map on Dad's office walls that showed where GE sent their locomotives to, and it went all over the world!

Since that night my mind continued to drift and soon I had begun to dream about what I would do when it was my turn. Dad said if I was serious about going into the rail industries I should aim to study Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, or even both. I thought about the books I'd read on trains and imagined myself tweaking the engine of a super cool, gleaming white train and zipping through the countryside. But more than that, I think about how I could bring new things to the table. The stories of hospital trains and operator-less trains also ran through my mind as I finally drifted off to sleep...

"Mr. Sullivan." A voice called out and I turned around and saw a boy who looked about nineteen running towards me. I realized that I was looking down at him and glanced at my hands, which appeared to be large and similar to my Dad's. With a slight jolt I half-realized that I was in my dream, and I followed my dream me, who didn't even hesitate before following the boy to the small doorway that he came through. I saw the countryside zipping past us outside the window and knew that we must be on a train. But there was almost no jostling or swaying of any kind.

"How is the operation going?" I asked the boy as we made our way through a spotlessly white carriage that's stacked with movable hospital beds and wheelchairs. My voice was deeper and more grown up, and somehow I knew that I was on a hospital train.

"It's going well." The boy answered as the sets of automatic doors glided open soundlessly in front of us, bring us into something that resembled a school nurse's office. There was a metal monitor thing next to another set of doors opposite the one we came in through with a flashing red light above it. I knew instinctively that it must be the operating theatre.

"Are there any problems being reported?" I asked; my hands now tucked together behind my back as I inspected the measurements on the digital display. After I was satisfied with them, we darted out of the carriage and made our way back the where we came.