Frozen Train
by Robert Tracy
Title
Frozen Train
Artist
Robert Tracy
Medium
Painting - Oil On Canvas
Description
This painting was inspired by a scene in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. The heroine is on a train to an important meeting. Suddenly the train stops. She says, "I think we're on a frozen train." [A "frozen train", in the novel, is one in which the engineer stops in the middle of nowhere and all his men leave it standing as they escape into the countryside. The reason? The government has taken control of rail traffic issuing decrees that make it impossible for these men to make a living anymore or even do their jobs the way they know how.]
These are the passages from Rand that inspired the landscape and the train:
"...the sight of the great vacuum―the plain stretching off and dissolving into moonlight...."
p. 676 (HB)
"Come on," she ordered, as if he were still an employee of the railroad. "I think we're on a frozen train."
p. 674 (HB)
They walked silently past the engine and on in the direction of its headlight. At first, stepping from tie to tie, with the violent light beating against them from behind, they still felt as if they were at home in the normal realm of a railroad. Then she found herself watching the light on the ties under her feet, watching it ebb slowly, trying to hold it, to keep seeing its fading glow, until she knew that the hint of a glow on the wood was no longer anything but moonlight. She could not prevent the shudder that made her turn to look back. The headlight still hung behind them, like the liquid silver globe of a planet, deceptively close, but belonging to another orbit and another system.
p. 678 (HB)
Uploaded
February 8th, 2013
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