You're approaching the railroad tracks when you hear the horn
and see a train coming down the line. Most people get annoyed by
the delay. But if you relax and look forward to watching the
train roll by, you're a railroad buff.  The condition is
probably hereditary. Other writers wax rhapsodic about playing
catch with Dad in the back yard, but I was a youngster in the
last days of steam locomotives during the 1950s.  When the
family was out on a Sunday afternoon drive, wandering along the
back roads and farm towns of Weld County in the fall, we might
see coal smoke on the horizon, or hear the low moan of a distant
steam whistle. Then my dad would race toward those tracks.  If
he got there in time, we might see a Burlington steamer brought
out of storage to handle the rush of harvest business. Or the
Great Western Railroad's immense and immaculate No. 90,
straining to pull a long string of sugar-beet gondolas to the
mill.  Often the county road ran parallel to the tracks. We'd
pace the train, waving to the engi