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June 05, 2005

12.51pm

Wednesday 2nd June - 12.51pm

It seems now that I’m finished college, I’m always catching irregularly timed trains. It used to be the 8.40am train every morning and failing that, the conveniently timed 8.45am Arrow. Plan B as I used to call it. But now, in these endless days of light, I’m always running to catch the 1.10pm or in today’s case, the 12.51pm. An odd time to be catching a train, don’t you think? Whereas an early morning train would probably point towards a day of college lectures or a maybe even a business briefing with the execs from the marketing department, and an evening train could suggest a date with that pretty girl you met in the contemporary fiction section of Hodges & Fidges last Tuesday, but it’s trains like the 12.51pm that are simply too odd a time to be catching to for you to have a legitimate reason for going to Dublin, like the ones mentioned thus far. A person aboard the 12.51pm train, which goes straight to Heuston Station without stopping, should be regarded with suspicion. They are going at a time when they couldn’t possibly be going up merely to do lunch. The train would have to break the speed of light to make it and I don’t know about you, but I don’t hold that much confidence in Iarnród Éireann.

So standing on the platform at Newbridge Station, for the very first time at 12.51pm, I was pondering with fierce concentration on what kind of people would be on the 12.51pm to Dublin. It couldn’t be students. They’d either have caught the morning train or, if they missed that, be still in bed. It certainly couldn’t be any of the Civil Servants that pollute the carriages of Irish Rail. They too get morning trains. By the time the 12.51pm came into sight, I had ruled out any possibility of business people, hobos, travel agents, politicians and secondary school students taking unauthorised field trips as it were. There was practically no other group of people that could possibly be on this train. By my obscure logic, the train ought to be empty. Only it wasn’t.

As I boarded the top carriage and searched for a seat, I was overwhelmed by the individuals to whose minority I had completely overlooked. This train was infested by old people! Napping men with plaid patterned hats. Chattering women with walking sticks and sucky sweets. They were everywhere. It was like sitting in a carriage headed for Hades. To add to this frail situation, the seat I parked myself in was beside two sprightly looking nuns who momentarily eyed my youth with suspicion. Along our journey, they talked of many things that you would expect nuns to talk about. How Sister Ann had got on in the Los Angelus Covent. Last Sunday’s morning sermon where apparently a Mrs. Kelly had taken “a turn” and most alarmingly, they talked about headstones. Now I have a partial fear of Death so you can imagine how more uncomfortable my journey just became.

As we sped by Hazelhatch station I had the bright idea of doing a column all about religion. Must like the time I texted all my comrades asking them “What is Love?” and then wrote a column about it, I decided that I would text them all and ask, “Do you believe in God?” By divine intervention I had ran out of credit. God probably sensed the atheist rantings I was going to get back. As we pulled into Heuston Station I took a good look around at every one else in the carriage and at once a line from Philip Larkin’s poem The Old Fools jumped into my head. “Why aren't they screaming?” Strange that I should suddenly remember that striking line just now. So, with that in mind, I set off into the city to do whatever it is that people who board the 12.51pm train tend to do.

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:23 PM