Things About Train Travel

Friday 30th September 2011, lines written on my first week of train journeys to and from work, after becoming a rail commuter (again). 


Why not listen to some music as you read? This song was in my head on my walk to the train station this morning. It contains the lines: "The little man who gets the train, got a mortgage hanging over his head, But he's too scared to complain, 'cos he's conditioned that way..." - thanks, Ray.

Bad things about train travel:

• The battle with clothing. Running for trains in a coat, getting too hot, getting on the train, red-faced and panting, having to take coat and other layers off, with strangers eyes seemingly glaring at you. Getting caught out by the weather, nowhere near the safe haven of your house, where an umbrella might be quickly grabbed, or a jumper, or a coat discarded.

• The problem of what you can carry with you. A holdall is too big, and too uncomfortable to carry. A rucksack too small, and what if you have shopping, or running shoes?

• The overcrowdedness, for which you yourself are equally to blame. Nowhere to sit when you're exhausted first thing in the morning, while one or two unflustered, cool-shirted types are lavishly strewn about an otherwise empty first class, making you want to "do a riot".

• Late trains, cancelled trains, having to call work, getting home late.

• The endless temptation of places to buy refreshments, which are over-priced and deeply dissatisfying. Being hungry or thirsty when there are no such establishments nearby or open.

• Never being sure whether to offer a seat, whether you will offend someone who doesn't want to be thought of as old, pregnant, female, etc. Some days just being in such a foul mood as to not want to give up your seat in any circumstances, even if your own grandmother is wheeled through the sliding doors, from beyond the grave.

• Jealousy of other people's gadgets. Wishing you had your own laptop to play Champ Man on.

• Jealousy of other people's lives in general, that they look better, dress better, smell better, and evidently have a better job than you. But are they happy!

• The look on people's faces as they near the end of their homeward journey, the end of their days, seemingly the end of their lives, their sallow faces, drooping eyelids, and not one of them is smiling.

Good things about train travel:

• Overhearing people's conversations, realising they're just like you, different to you, slightly different to you, slightly the same as you. Overhearing some great, inspiring humanity to set you off on a good day.

• Seeing and getting up close and personal with an infinite number of new and different people each day; people to fantasise over, admire,  imagine what their lives are like, imagine whole lives with, vaguely flirt with, chase through tunnels under platforms, only for them to veer off to a different platform, gone, perhaps, forever.

• The excitement that comes with the knowledge you could innocently chance upon a companion from the past; an old school friend, an ex-lover, an ex-wannabe lover, thinking you saw someone you knew, was that her? You'd like to think it was, and it sets you thinking...

• The romance of stations, this is where lovers meet for debut kisses, spies outspy each other, criminals may lurk among the everyday folk, and everyone is going somewhere, everyone has a story. Like airports, but not as good, and more full of commuters. Like in this great song, by the fella who sang about Vegemite sandwiches and where men chunder:

• Hearing foreign tongues, seeing foreign smiles, gestures, laughs, and realising there's a world out there, and it's big and it's WILD.

• Time for yourself, to sit, ponder, people-watch, time to read, time to write, time to imagine a life for yourself, to not have to concentrate, to allow the mind to wander, but not too far...doh! Missed my stop!

Here's some more Kinks, about choo-choo trains: