Arts Editor

Writing the music was an act of love.That's how Sharon Freedman-Gruber describes the songs that she and her husband, Jeff, wrote for the documentary Next Stop Silver Spring (www.silverspringtrain.org), about the history and restoration of the B&O railroad station in Silver Spring.

"I have a soft spot for Silver Spring," says Freedman-Gruber, 49, who grew up there. "My brother and I went to sleep at night hearing the whistle from the same train from that station. It was a lullaby. It's like an old friend."

The Grubers still live in Silver Spring, where they belong to Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim, and she has told her son that the train he hears at night is the same one she heard as a child.

"Silver Spring was a great place to grow up in," she says, and her affection for the town is reflected in the four songs she wrote for the documentary, which will debut on WETA TV Sunday at 8 p.m.

"As a songwriter, you write about who you are and what you feel. I feel very sentimental about Silver Spring."

The documentary's producer/director also has a Silver Spring connection. "I always loved trains and when I was a kid, I used to visit the Silver Spring train station and was always fascinated by it," says Walter Gottlieb. "When I was working on Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb in 2002, I learned that Montgomery Preservation, Inc., was restoring the station, and I thought it would make an interesting subject for a film."

Jeff Gruber, 48, who grew up in Wheaton, wrote three songs for Next Stop: Silver Spring. In addition, he was the film's music supervisor, and his studio, Blue House Productions, produced and recorded all the songs. (One of the CDs his studio produced previously was Together [2006], in which Washington Hebrew Congregation Cantors Mikhail Manevich and Susan Bortnick perform.)

One of his songs is "Riding with the B&O," which tells how the builders of the railroad had to blast through mountains to lay its track. But it also remembers how luxurious the train accommodations could be and how much fun it was to eat in the dining car.

In the song "Standing in the Station," Gruber writes about a person standing on the platform wanting to ride the train, but other forms of transportation, like cars and planes, are encroaching on the train. ("I don't want to fly and I don't want to drive / I just want to ride the rails.")

"The sentiment is that the person is longing for a different time," he says.

In addition to the film's title song, which Freedman-Gruber wrote and sings, she wrote "Bringing It Back to Life," a sentimental song about the station, and "A Little Bit of Lipstick" about its renovation. ("We're givin all our children a glimpse of the past / We gotta let em know cause they grow up too fast / that part of where we came from and why we're still here / might have something to do with that station down here.")

Her songs span a number of musical styles, including jazz, rock, folk and acoustic instrumental.

"Jeff and Sharon drew on their intimate knowledge of Silver Spring and their passion for music and songwriting to create some truly original and quite sophisticated songs for the soundtrack," says Gottlieb of the Grubers' contribution to his film.