Lost opportunity

[desperance]

If I'd had my phone tiny mobile computer with me, I could've taken such a photo this morning.

I was leaning on the gate at the level grade crossing, waiting for the train to pull out of Sunnyvale station and blast past; and I heard a horn from the other direction, but not a locomotive type at all, just a regular road-going auto horn.

So I looked around, and there was this pick-up truck I've seen a few times now, chuntering happily along the rails. It's some kind of maintenance vehicle, I guess: it has wheels for the rails and wheels for the road, and sometimes when it reaches the crossing it turns off the tracks and drives off up the road.

Not today. The train came out of the station; the truck kept following the track in the opposite direction; they passed each other with polite honkings. I've never seen that before, I don't suppose it happens often at a crossing; and I could've got a picture. If my phone photographic device weren't at home, recharging. Hey-ho.