Grounded Line

I hauled myself up the stepped concrete weir at the rim of the retention basin. The ground leveled into an abandoned maintenance siding, where twin steel rails cut through beds of crushed ballast and dry weeds. Beside the rail plate sat a cast-iron trackside junction box, its heavy lid propped slightly ajar by a rusted rail clip. I knelt in the gravel and retrieved my straightened wire probe. Working the tip inside, I tested the tension of an intact copper lead against a porcelain insulator. Zero vibration; completely grounded. I pulled the chalk fragment from my pocket, marking a clean vertical tick on the rusted casing to index the terminal. The corridor ahead remains clear.