A tag hand-scrawled on a hopper 10 years ago, a sticker slapped on a control stand by an engineer on the other side of the country, rust forming on a weld seam on the nose of a locomotive, a beat-up and dirty number board and its clean new counterpart on the other side of the cab roof, a joke written in grime on a fuel tank—these tiny details contribute to the story of modern railroading, and each tells a story themselves.