Maybe I like trains because I grew up knowing that PopPop used to drive trains (I also knew he carried an ice pick during peanut deliveries to bars in Harrisburg but that didn’t have the same intrinsic appeal at first and I didn’t appreciate his genius for years). Grandma once told me he came home tired and awed because he had piloted a new kind of engine across Pennsylvania from Ohio. “Oh Myerly” he told her as he flopped across the bed, “that engine was something.” Maybe it was the awesome train set we had in the basement.  I had my own SOO engine before I was 7. White with red trim. It gleamed as it soared, shicka shicka shicka, past our model station and waiting matchbox cars. It stopped for no one. Maybe the liking struck c. 1977 when I rode the commuter train into Philadelphia with my dad. It was near Christmas so it was chilly and smoky exhaust and bits of flotsam blew around the train when it heaved into the station. …