On Trains
- Details
- Written July 2020
My first memory of a train journey is the one when our mother took me and my sister to the dry climate of inland, Oudtshoorn - to try to cure us of the whooping that wouldn’t go away. It did the trick, but arrive back in Port Elizabeth, and no sooner there, the whoop and what followed were back with a vengeance. But that was over by the time we travelled back from a Paarl holiday by train, Bingo, our newly acquired Lassie look-alike, travelling in his dog-box with us. He had to be exercised and fed at every station.
It was years later when commuter travel from Bromley started for me, strap-hanging, with a copy of the Lancet in the other hand on my way to the Hammersmith. In later years it would become the unbroken silence of eight of us hiding behind a copy of the Daily Telegraph or some other reading material in the pre-Metro days. We got on at Herne Hill, saying nothing to each other all the way to Blackfriars. One day I accidentally bumped into someone. I apologised. That broke the ice and started a daily conversation.
Ten years later, and by now in India, the train became our principal means of long-distance travel. There were no inhibitions there. ‘So what’s that insignia on your collars?’ he asked. We explained a little about The Salvation Army to this elderly Indian gentleman, sitting cross-legged across the compartment. He was not impressed. A veteran of the freedom struggle who had worked with Gandhi, he was committed to non-violence and peace-making. ‘It won’t work here,’ he told us quite bluntly. We left him in peace a few hours later as we got down at Nellore.
Regarded as one of the loveliest of train journeys anywhere, the narrow-gauge railway into the scenic Nilgiri Hills of south India from Metupalyam to Coonoor was always a joy. Our destination was Andre’s school and a stay at the holiday-home/conference centre, Surrenden. On one occasion we were not certain whether we should take one of the journeys from Madras/Chennai to Coimbatore. A state-wide curfew/shut-down would be in place just as we arrived and we would not be able to complete the journey into the hills. Margaret was scheduled as guest speaker at the school. We’ll get there somehow, she told me, with characteristic determination. The girls at the SA home had told us to go. ‘We’ll pray for you, uncle,’ they’d said. I was not so certain but woke up next morning, got off the train, only to be met by a sergeant from the military academy near the school. He saluted me. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you to breakfast and then we’ll travel to Wellington.’ I immediately guessed what had happened. He’d mistaken the insignia on the collar for an international visitor to a military strategy training course. I protested, but he would have none of it. We arrived in plenty of time for the school prize-giving. This time the insignia had helped.
It was a different story on another journey on the train headed north for Kolkata. A fellow-traveller got out his bible and said a prayer. He worked for The Leprosy Mission. He told us he always did that. We awoke after an overnight journey to find the train at a stand-still. ‘We’ve been derailed,’ fellow-passengers told us. Other carriages were strewn in the adjoining fields. We were upright, still on the rails and safe. ‘A miracle,’ was the report in the local paper next day, ‘no fatalities or serious injuries.’
There’s a lot more I could recount on Indian train travel, from Margaret sleeping on the floor of an over-crowded third class alongside goats and sacks of rice, to travelling first class air-conditioned Delhi to Amritsar. But enough for now.
Years later, we were on a holiday journey headed for Cape Town. We chose the train. We’d hardly left Johannesburg but Margaret felt sure it was a steam train. ‘No way,’ I replied, ‘The days of steam are over.’ She left me to check, rushing back with: ‘You must go. You’ll love it.’ I rushed down the platform. The inevitable happened. The signals turned green just as I arrived. I turned to go. The driver beckoned me forward and before I knew what had happened I helped stoke the fire for the next 50 miles. They even offered me coffee, warmed over the boiler. I had the time of my life. We headed south, stopping at Kimberley, where local SA leaders, Glen and Moya Hay surprised us with sandwiches. Who had told them, I wondered. We settled down for the night but woke in torrential rain, the train at a standstill. A bridge had been washed away. The last hundred miles were by coach. We arrived several hours late, too late for the connecting train to Fish Hoek. Fortunately a sister and brother-in-law could accommodate us. It was an unforgettable holiday. Some years later I recalled that journey on a visit to South Africa’s Train Museum in George, a few lines and a few photos to go with it: The Stoker. https://thedups.com/pauls-poems/south-africa/70-the-stoker
A return to London, and thanks to a freedom pass has meant increasing use of the train. Where Louis Napoleon used to board his in a special siding at Chislehurst we would catch the 0937. ‘The next train to arrive at platform 3 is the 0937 to Charing Cross, calling at Elmstead Woods, Grove Park .... And more recently it’s occasionally been the 0916 from Chelsfield, where the cutting and tunnel inspired Edith Nesbit who lived nearby to write The Railway Children. All aboard, please!
I think I remain a railway child at heart.
June 2020