rolling-stock absence

[Jeffrey Meikle]

Tom Stanton writes:
>ckaratnytsky at nypl.org wrote:
>>      Also, on page 3, what is "a sour smell of rolling-stock absence?"
>
>"Rolling stock" is the term used to describe train cars. I took it
>to mean the smell of very old trains that had not been maintained.
>TRP does the job in 4 words..

Maybe, but I found myself thinking that the smell is from the *absence* of
rolling stock.  And then I couldn't imagine what sour smell is left behind
on a little-used track or siding, after the last cars have pulled out.
Rust, soot, spilled coal, dampness, chill--something like ammonia?  I don't
have the chemistry to put it together.  Anybody else?  But I think it *is*
a vital question.  We do want to believe that all these obscurely precise
rhetorical flourishes really do *mean*, that there *is* "another mode of
meaning beyond the obvious," or whole constellations of them, that TRP
might just put us in touch with.

Jeff