My routine on campus is pretty similar from one semester to the next, but when I went home for Thanksgiving break, I found myself missing something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
It wasn’t until I was in traffic that I realized what it was — the train.
It’s background noise to my everyday activities on campus, which is probably why I didn’t notice it at first, but the train is unintentionally a part of my routine.
There are plenty of sounds around campus, from the chime of the Alamance bell to the lawn equipment that helps landscape campus every morning, but the train is so distinctly unique to Elon. Sure, the train can be annoying. Students complain that it rattles their walls when it passes by, it keeps many of us held up in traffic and the sound even messes with some of our live Elon Local News broadcasts, but I find myself enjoying the familiarity of it.
As much as the train is a part of our routines, the train is a part of university history. It worked its way into residential neighborhood and restaurant names, with the Station at Mill Point paying homage to the original train station on the corner of Williamson and Trollinger.
Being able to study or sleep through the train noise is a sure sign of being an Elon student, and unless I’m right by it, I hardly hear the train anymore. But Elon wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t hear the train every morning and night.