When I went to USC back in the early 1980s, the Associate Dean at the Marshall School of Business was a train enthusiast. We had several conversations about trains and the train memorabilia he had around his office. He told me the following story.
He had been born and had grown up on a farm in Idaho. He disliked the farm life, having to rise early in the morning and work until nightfall. There was a train track which crossed the bottom of the farm. When he had the chance, he would sit on the hillside and watch the trains as they would cross the property and leave for parts unknown. It became an obsession with him that one day he would get on one of those trains and never look back. A train would be his pass to freedom!
Many years later, he became a professor and a dean at the prestigious University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, but he never forgot the train which allowed him to escape the farm life. Trains became a symbol of freedom and change for the better. Perhaps they represent that same feeling for many others.
