A German Train Set

One morning in the Dresden Ostbahnhof, with minutes to fritter, I found myself entranced in a model train set, which seemed to be a miniature German world.

I felt like there was a key to the country inside the glass case...




One inserts a fifty-cent piece, and one can select the train of choice, the ICE or the D-ZUG or the GUTERZUG or the PERSONENZUG, the choice being the allure of the entire exhibit. If not for the choice, the temptation to press the large button would have been considerably less.

The first thing I noticed was the spinning wind turbine: cool, progressive power. Then the Bundespolizei drew my attention, with their long blue truck, next to the well-lighted and cozy homes, as if perhaps there was an unconscious link between the security and warmth of the homes and the great mysterious truck of protection.





The old steam train laden with coal rests happily alongside the new gleaming InterCityExpress, sleekly poised to jump into action.




And around the bend, the horses frolick, in some kind of pastoral bliss, in more motion than the trains, in uncontrollable motion, in motion that cannot be started or stopped.



The wilderness too has its place, and deer stride along the rocks, while tourists enjoy the view of the wilderness from the castle. One lone hiker strides through the forests, with his walking sticks and rucksack, presumably enjoying the solitude... In the furthest corner of the display, an agreeable amount of wilderness is maintained.

Within this box, all the tensions of modernity are resolved. The past, present, and future coexist pleasantly in some kind of order. But it is, finally, the calamity that draws the most attention.

The fire glows red and dims at regular intervals, the LED lights on the sirens blink, and this moment of tragedy is frozen in time.





Meanwhile, the lone girl sits on her bench, unawares of the personal tragedy occurring within her very box. It reminiscent of Auden's study of Breughel's Icarus in "Muséé des Beaux Arts", the ploughman turning away from Icarus's fall: one person's afternoon on the bench while calamity befalls another,

the plastic trains clicking away or silent through it all.

Turning away from the display, I ascend to the gleis, to sit on my moving bench and be transported in an orderly smooth fashion away from this order, into another kind of land.