traintrip

I had a new 'topper' coat which mum had made. It was a thick blue material with a collar, and it looked wonderful and I was excited because we were going on a train trip. I don't know where we ended up. Or how long we stayed. Or how we came back.

But I remember the train trip as if it was yesterday. It was a steam train and you could open the windows and stick your head out to smell the burning coal - but you had to be careful the black coal grit didn't get in your eyes. The line twisted and turned so you could sometimes see the engine and carriages ahead as the train slowly snaked around a valley which fell away below the window. And sometimes you saw the tail but not the engine because that was wrapping around a hillside ahead.

My mother taught me the sounds of the train. When it slowly went up an incline the tired engine would be saying slowly "I ..think ..I ..can ,..I ..think ..I ..can ,..I ..think ..I ..can........"; and when it went down the other side the engine said quickly "I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it....".

It was a slow old train which ran between Dorrigo and Glenreigh in northern NSW. Just a tourist attraction now I believe - and little wonder. Its carriages were made up of a number of 'dog-box' compartments. Completely separated from each other, the compartments had a door on each side of the train and two long bench seats facing one another. And there was a lift up section at one end so you could get to the 'WC' which meant 'Watering Closet' because everyone was too polite to say toilet.

There were metal luggage racks above the seats and a metal holder near the side doors for a water bottle and glasses in case travellers got thirsty. In cold weather the railway staff would fill up metal containers with hot water which sat on the floor as foot warmers. On the walls between the seats and the luggage racks there were long framed black and white photographs of country landscapes, and the overhead lights had fluted glass shades.

On that particular railway line there was a friendly guard who travelled in the last carriage - called the guards van - and the train passed through a number of small railway sidings on it?s journey down the mountain. But the first stop the day of my special journey wasn't at a siding. It was just a small clearing on a reasonably straight section of track and the train driver had stopped so the guard could boil the billy for a morning ?cuppa?. There was just my mother and myself in our 'dog-box' that day and soon the guard came along and handed up steaming mugs of sweet black tea.

The next stop was at a small siding. All the way down the mountain there were small settlements of railway workers, timber cutters, and small hillside banana farms. The men met the train when it came through several times a week to cadge any unwanted newspapers from the passengers.

When I went to the window there was a cluster of men around our carriage, all imploring the few travellers for what could be spared. At the back of the small crowd was a tall sandy haired man who came late and was looking quite forlorn about his prospects of getting any reading matter that day.

With my mothers permission I rolled up our one newspaper and magazine, called out "these are for the tall man at the back", and threw them as hard as I could. He caught them, gave me a big smile, waved, and walked away.

Sitting down again in the compartment opposite mum we talked about the life these men lived and how cut off they were from daily news and contact with people. I remember her telling me that some of them even had their wives and children living with them in homes that were no more than bark shacks, so she was pleased that I wanted to give them what we had. Mums generosity of spirit when she had so pitifully little herself was a lifelong lesson to me.

Even more so, because while she was telling me about these men's lives, we heard a voice calling from outside the carriage. "Where's the little girl in the blue coat? The little girl with pigtails and the blue coat?" When I went to the train window there was my tall stranger, handing up to me the biggest paper bag full of bananas I'd ever seen in my life.

I wonder if he ever remembered the encounter as I did? Or pondered on the quirks of fate which help to shape a life? A little steam train with it's driver and guard who weren't in a hurry. A mother who encouraged her daughter to give freely - and a man who was thoughtful enough to repay us in kind.

Water colour mpression of the Dorrigo to Glenreigh train - included with the kind permission of Artist Jenny Macnaughton