( Presentation of the
author):
They come to me smells of coffee come to the thought newly made
and visions of the garden to the dawn, dressed in a cap of haze and
hoar-frost, green, in infinite tones, standing out darker those
under a cloaked sky, you upset awake.
In the horizon the
fight between the Sun and the clouds, the flight of the night.
 Meanwhile,
the trills of the birds compose the sonorous band of the day.
Suddenly, from the distance, a new instrument passes to increase the
already powerful orchestra of the birds. He is probably the most
ancient musician of the unexpected orchestra. Other singings, other
hisses filled the air time behind, accompanying his unmistakable
sound; while his notes were perforating the haze, entire generations
have happened, being born and dying inexorably for a lot of time.
It is one more
component of the garden, which zigzags between still slept orange
trees. His light disperses in the countless sparkles of the drops of
dew. His color is the same that that of the darkest leaves; his
movements encircled by the tracing of the way, accompany of a soft
cadence in an odd allegro
ma singular
troppo. It transports lives and hopes, passions, desires,
illusions, frustrations... He is a friend of all except of those
that cross in his way at the wrong time. With everything, it
continues being popular and dear without the reputation has raised
him to his head of wood and metal. It is the
trenet.
Of all this, already
thirty years ago. It was the first contact, the first impression
that me there caused those old trains that so much service gave
Valencia. Nowadays almost quite it has changed except the tracing.
The old men convoyes already do not
circulate, they were a pasture of the blowpipe. Others, much
replaced them more comfortable and rapid, though, certainly they do
not have the same captivation. Of the
“estacioneta” of the Pont of
Lash, only the building stays, so everything what was the beach of
routes, the platforms and other facilities it is now only a
recollection, a photography. Supporters and detractors will not stop
discussing the suitability of the changes, on past and future. But
for the present time, in the present, the systematic one of progress
and of the technology it has won completely to all those romantic
visions of the trenet as it was. The
result is evident: a better service, a major comfort, a completely
different image. The times change. We also. But, lucky, always the
history stays.
And with this history I
am going to try to deal, concretly, with 110 years of history of the
trenet. An exciting and wonderful
history, which is not other one that the history of Valencia and the
Valencian ones, of his vicissitudes, of his daily experiences
adorned with those unforgettable traqueteos
and hisses that dominated the garden, which they lived and which
they coexisted with the daily occupation of many men and women. |
