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June 05, 2005

The Vigilante Group Meeting

Welcome and bien venue to the Trains, Buses and Automobiles 10th Anniversary Spectacular! Originally for the occasion I had planned to present this column in 3D with free 3D-glasses in every Nationalist but for some reason it wasn’t feasible. Yes, commuters it’s been ten long weeks of theatrical high jinks aboard Arrow’s, taxis and the notorious number 15 out to Rathmines where many of our quaint scenes have been set. So gather round children, as we delve into this week’s madness!

Wednesday 28th April

A hazy mist is softly rising from the dew ridden grass. Far away a cow calls out. It’s all so primitive. Almost Jurassic. The air is brisk and the birds are still asleep. It seems I’m the only one in the whole world whose awake. Look at the beauty. Look at the sky. Look at the TIME! It’s 8.35am and my bloody train leaves in FIVE minutes! It’s times like these when I call in Liam’s personal chauffeur service or Newbridge Cabs as they prefer to be called. We pull up in Newbridge Station. I look at my watch to realise that I’m late but luckily so is the train. Just inside the door of the station I was greeted by Cllr. Fiona O’Loughlin. Drat, I thought! She’ll be wanting me to vote for Fianna Fáil at the next election! Just act casual, Liam. Tell her you’re loyalty is to Labour or better still just tell her you don’t vote. Sigh. That’s my conscience for you. I have to listen to him every friggin’ day and he’s no Jiminy Cricket.

Anyhoo, turns out that Fiona is handing out the results of a survey she conducted of commuters using the Newbridge-Hueston Rail service. The results revealed that the issue of train punctuality was the main concern of the respondents in the survey. Which is a perfectly good concern to be worried about but I propose we unite as commuters and demand other things from Iarnród Éireann. Like a blue Arrow instead of a dodgy looking orange one. Seriously though, wouldn’t that be cool? And it could be like a florescent blue colour so that at nighttime it glowed in the dark. Em…yeah, so anyway. Getting back to Fiona O’Loughlin. She’s starting some sort of vigilante group, Rail Action Committee I think its called. They’re holding their first meeting in Sarsfields Clubhouse on the 10th May at 9pm. I say fair play to her. She seems to be doing a lot of work and my spies inform me that she was at the station since 6.30am that morning handing out the results of her survey. And for those of you who are fuming over Dublin Bus and their services, I can recommend checking out www.busrage.ie where angry commuters gather online to verbally abuse Seamus Brennan. On the site you can add your name to a petition to have all the government transport bigwigs actually use public transport instead of their luxury cars. Here, here! Later in the day, after college, I boarded the eerily empty 4.20pm train to Newbridge. Yet no sooner had we pulled out of Hueston, the train came to an unscheduled halt along the track just before Cherry Orchard. The driver apologises for the delay and says we should be moving shortly. Easy going as I am, I simply sigh and continue reading my book. Several minutes later though, bothered by the fact that we were still not moving I turned my head to the window only to get the fright of my life. There, on the other side of the window was a big cow staring in at me. A few of his colleagues were sauntering on down the track. Turns out they made a break for it from a field a few yards up. I’ve been called into the investigation as a key witness, so keep on the look out for a big brown cow with a scar on his left cheek. He’s WANTED!

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

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:05 PM