Into the Dark: The Train Tunnel
Some places stay with you not because of how they look, but because of who you were with. Clinton, Massachusetts, holds one of those places for me, a train tunnel hidden in the woods near the Wachusett Dam, a spot I never would have found on my own. Someone very special to me brought me there, long before I knew how much the moment would mean. He’s the person who first got me into urban exploring. He’s the person who made me a curious photographer. Some of my favorite memories from my early twenties were with him.
This adventure was one of our best. It started with a text message where he sent me nothing but the coordinates. No explanation, no preview, just a location and a promise, “I’ll pick you up. We’re going to explore.”
The goal was to create a scavenger hunt for his friend. They had a tradition of taking solo trips, leaving clues and maps leading to one final treasure. So before anything else, we stopped at Kimball’s Farm, an ice cream place I grew up going to, and we picked out a keychain. That would be the “treasure” waiting at the end of his friend's journey. I didn’t know it then, but this simple detour would become a memory I’d replay for years. The car ride back was warm and free in the way only early-20s adventures can be. He showed me an album that would become permanently tied to that day. We played a game of matching songs to colors, talking about how the artist wrote a whole rainbow of songs. I wish I could go back to that moment, windows down, music loud, feeling that specific kind of freedom you only get when you’re with someone who sees the world the way you do.
He drove past the Wachusett Dam and pulled off onto the side of the road. I’d been to that dam many times growing up, and I had absolutely no idea why we were stopping. “You’ll see,” he said, smiling in that way that made you trust him even when you didn’t know what was coming. We waited for the road to clear, then sprinted across the street and slipped into the woods. When we got to the top of a small hill, there was an entrance to an old train tunnel, long abandoned, its stone walls covered in graffiti. Looking into it, I couldn’t see a single thing. Not one hint of light. Just pure, endless black.
I am terrified of the dark. But next to him? No way was I going to look like a baby. He was always brave, certain, grounded, and unshakable. So I pretended I was, too. We turned on our phone flashlights and stepped inside. The tunnel was cold, wet, and echoing; every sound felt amplified. I stayed close enough to him that I could see his profile in the flashlight glow, close enough to grab him if something startled me (not that I ever would have admitted I needed that), but he knew. I’m sure he knew.
When we finally reached the end, the darkness opened up into something unexpected, a lush, overgrown forest. It felt like stepping through a portal, the way the light filtered through the leaves and hit the damp ground. He darted around puddles, laughing. Then he climbed up a tree with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times before. From one of the branches, he tucked the keychain into place for his friend to come and find. He paced the distance from the tree back to the tunnel, marking the final clue on the map he’d created. When he finished, he jumped down, dusted off his hands, and grinned at me like we were in on the best secret in the world.
This adventure didn’t just fuel my creativity; it shaped it. It opened up something in me that photography now depends on: the curiosity, the vulnerability, the thrill of stepping into the unknown just to see what’s on the other side. I think that’s why I still think about this day, not because of the tunnel, not even because of him, but because of who I became on the other side of that tunnel.
