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Creative Mood Writing on Trains
Mood writing is evocative of the great classical writers, the masters of yesteryear. In The Mood Book's pages we absorb their creative craft via rich prose examples. Some trains are merry on their rails, others are scarily clanking along. Whatever their mood they're on the way, rails vibrating, engines roaring! Clickety clack! Clickety clack!
Written by Angela Abraham in 2024
Creative Writing On The Rails - Trains in Tyrannical Tempers and Merry Moods
Example One:
In a spectral shuddering cry, coldest metal wheels screech-smacked rails that were both chains and cage. It was one of those nights that imprisoned the sun. It was one of those nights that robbed its rays not for solace, yet for greed. It was one of those nights that sent a pseudo-dawn, a pseudo-dawn of unforgiving fluorescent harshness. The whole world was underground the day it rolled into every station. Peeling paint, shattered grime-smothered glass, worn out numbers so scratched and dim. From the doors came phantoms in well starched shadows, pressed, ironed, rustling. Clomp. Clomp. All around was a crowd of spectral jack-boots. The wind was not wind, yet whispers that twisted into almost-words. That train vanished only to arrive again and thus the night rolled on and on.
Example Two:
Icy rails whiplashed to the twilight ground, and from them grew shards of ice that sat up as cave-less stalagmites. The heavens lowered, stars erased, so low sat coal-charred clouds. The wind carried not the nightingale, yet a discord of insomniac crows born of vampire’s breath. The trees did crumble to ash, yet no fire did we see. No scent of burning did come. Then to the rails a ghost train was born, not fashioned in the usual way. It was scratch-slashed into the ether with jagged gouges of rough form. Scritch. Scratch. Slice. No Christmas train was this. No carriages of mirth would such a beast ever bring. No! No! This was the nightmare train. This was the rattler that bore dread’s very name.
Example Three:
At sunrise, heavens maple-hued, the Via Rail train click-clicked on and on. Wheels and steel gravity bonded, its song was a rappity tap tap. Passed blushed mirror lakes of migrating geese, it was industrial hour’s poetry and great onward ballad. Gentle, strong, ever hard at work, assuring its destiny one humble turn at a time.
Example Four:
In that maple dawn, upon a yawn of prairies, the train arced into a visual grin. Gentle clicking as percussion, huckleberry fuelled chickadees as choir, it sang each yard as loudly as a sonnet’s mile. Though wide prairies and mountain passes same, it took the grandest of landscapes, in easy stride. Uphill or down, easy plains or rocky screes, wheels turned. Its chassis, water freckled during the starlit hours, soon dried to a glossy sheen. The engine master smiled, sipping coffee, eyes a dreamy gaze, for if the tracks were his nation's arteries, surely he had become its pulse.
Example Five:
Upon shoreline slumbered clouds too sleepy to make their way into the sky. The tide was their lullaby with its winged karaoke-choir. Squawk. Ah-ah! Ah ah! Squawk! Their never changing sea shanty did ring out. Then, as a timid drummer to this coastal band, came the clickety clack of the Via Rail. It would be several long breaths before its lights could battle the fog, yet wait, wait, wait… With each passing moment timidness gave way to bold strikes and the headlamps pieced the white-out with ease. Today was the day they’d booked it to stop here, at the GPS coordinates for, “Where the heck is that?” It’s a good name for an almost hamlet. Maybe we’ll call it that. And so the behemoth of steel slowed to an easy jog before coming to a stop.” All aboard! All aboard!” the train’s master did shout.
Example Six:
Slumped on age-bowed rails, was a train of deep set misery. It’s one dirt encrusted eye did dim at twilight’s howling hiss-command. It hunkered squat and low, for gravity had cowed it, lashing with wintry-whips. How it did moan! How its wheels did whine! How its soul rattled at bars skank-grim. In diesel bouquets, as burnt and morbid offerings, it crept in as the very death knell of mirth. Involuntarily I stepped away, stumbling almost to the ground. Around it all was cold and becoming colder still. Is this how it moved? Did it steal heat? Did it bring hearts to a hypothermic stutter-halt? It could not be a thing of this world, yet a ghost train, a spectre made of Evil’s song.
Example Seven:
The Train track, as an earthbound ladder, absorbed the wide and generous curves. It’s clickety clack was the sweetest of rolling belly laughs. Maple clouds giggled in the sky above with a smiling cherry sun. From birdsong to the whisper of evergreens, the air’s ambiance came as a soul-wink. Mischief was in the air. One could taste it, feel it, from warming marrow to growing smirk. Something gloriously funny was afoot.
Welcome to the Scary Platform - Trains with a Morbid Mood
Welcome to the Party Platform - Trains of Merriest Mirth Await!
Welcome to the Platform Pessimism - Teary Trains Wail!
Platform 'Mischievous Mood' Told The Trains to Go Already! Ha!
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Our Inspiring Collection
A beautiful hardback archive of the original Descriptionari site, with the same content as The Quiet Archive.
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A four-book saga where ordinary people awaken extraordinary powers to save a world slowly blending with Tolkien-style monsters, fairytales and aliens. Coming Spring – crafted in rich, literary prose for readers who love depth.