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The train trip.
We recently discovered an even better train service to the city of Sydney. It’s the 8.17am leaving Bowral but only has the 3 stops to Central. Not that it is much faster. Arrival is still at about 10am at Central, but at least it bypasses many stations, this gives an impression of speed without really achieving it. It gives one some Schadenfreude when the train races past many station’s platform showing a blurred image of anxious looking train travelers.
We undertook this trip yesterday. I got up early, made the coffee and some noises in order to rally into action my ever patient partner of many years. She knows my ways. Train trips I always look forward to as opportunities for new discoveries and are anticipated with great excitement. They certainly were in my youth when I, on numerous occasions, took boat Trips to Europe on Italian Liners belonging to the Flotta Laura fleet. After landing at Italy’s Genoa, I would continue by train, which at the time was the Continental Express. Mr. Diacomo from Cooks & Sons in Pitt Street always booked the journeys including the European Continental Express. The boat trip including the train from Genoa to Amsterdam or Stockholm cost 120 pounds! (240 dollars)
After we bought our tickets at Bowral yesterday, the train promptly arrived. It was a long train and surprisingly the windows were unscratched and carriages spotless. We noticed a few elderly couple who, no doubt like us, were scheduled to travel to Central Station. While the Bowral-Central run is hardly in the same league as the Trans Continental (or The Orient Express) it is still a train trip and for the inquisitive can still yield surprises…
One of the surprises was the number of elderly couples. Where were they going, and why, seemed a question that I kept asking myself? As usual with elderly couples, the woman partner seemed to lead with the male one happy to follow. Why is it that the ageing male gets behind the eight-ball in their final run up to the finish-line? Is it hormonal? Women tend to outlive males. Go to any old age retirement village such as ‘even-tide’ or ‘autumn leaves’ and it is rich pickings for any widower. The magazine for seniors is full of ads from fascinating women seeking living males, NS, ND, and NG but still kicking!
Back to the Bowral-Sydney express we discovered after arrival at the Country Trains Terminal in Sydney there were hundreds if not thousands of elderly couples, all carrying similar red coloured bags with ‘senior’s printed on it. My curiosity knew no bounds, especially when a live band was playing in that big arrival-hall, right next to the female toilets. There was a triple queue for the female toilet yet no queue at the males. This seems fair; if the female outlives the male there is at least some balance in knowing that outliving the male causes the female more frequent toilet stop-over’s in their dotage.
Anyway, the mystery of so many elderly couples arriving from all over Sydney and environs with those red bags did not get solved. On the way back to Bowral, there were the same elderly couples. The same dithering husbands, stooped with age, looking even more bewildered, skinny vacant trousers bums but resolute stout wives, indefatigable leading all the way. “Sit here”, they would tell hubby. After coming home I googled ‘seniors with red bags’,’ senior’s festivals’, ‘senior’s outing dates. All to no-avail.
We enquired about the phenomenon to our Norwegian neighbor. Oh, she said,” it’s the annual Sydney’s Town Hall music for the elderly. They give a live concert each year. We should make a date to go next year.
There you go.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Thanks for this new rail journey piece, Gez. I’m with you. Trains good. Planes bad.
I really appreciated my more recent train trips in Europe too. Paris to Florence, Florence to Venice, Florence to Pisa, Florence to Rome, and a couple of years later, Vienna to Prague, Prague to Karlovy Vary (or Carlsbad Spa), Prague to Berlin, Berlin to Paris (a rather crowded and uncomfortable sleeper), Paris to Frankfurt. These were uneventful, on-time, safe, virtually hassle-free and efficient – and they offered time for reflection and just soaking up the scenery as well as negotiating some fairly challenging dining car experiences.
Today FM and I are in Melbourne. Time being short, we flew (Virgin Blue – since we dislike flying and giving QANTAS the opportunity to strand us with strikes and lock-outs as well as enduring this short stint of avionic torture – was just not on). I hate the whole rigmarole – the checking in, the security scan (three passes with increasing states of undress), the sardining on the plane where arseholes take three times the carry-on limit and take all the hand luggage spaces for everyone else and the sh*tfight getting off – what is it with everyone having to stand up for ages and block the aisles ?
School holidays. The little bastard behind me screamed and carried on and kicked the back of my seat all the way. Fortunately I was so tired, I dozed anyway. I reckon the airlines should recognise that adult passengers mostly hate everyone else’s kids. Why don’t they put on special kiddy flights (like school buses) so that childless passengers can avoid them ? Could do the same for really fat people. I mean what a cheek – charging me forty bucks for a couple of kilos excess baggage when the lardarse next to me weighs maybe forty kilos more than I do – needs an extension seat belt – spills across one and two quarters seats – sweats like a pig and pays the same as that gorgeous slip of a thing across the aisle ! Where’s the equity in that ?
Of course, none of that matters much on a train where you can wander around and adjust your personal space to suit the occasion. Yeah, trains ! More on pissed-as-a-newt passengers in the next episode.
Aside: I heard a great line retold by a comedian on Michael Macintyre’s Comedy Roadshow. The comedian said he loves Australian flight crews and quoted a captain on the Perth Red Eye as saying “Blah Blah Blah, that’s enough for me. Now it’s time to push some service down the aisle and push some scenery past the windows.” Great line, eh ?
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As a kid I would visit my uncles farm outside Tamworth. Mum would pack us all on the train via the Illawarra line and then New England. Fresh sandwiches were purchased at Central and Mum would flip if we stuck our heads out the window in case we were struck by coal. Not long after they became diesel, still a good trip and much faster but nowhere near as much fun.
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I remember going by train to the South Coast with my brother and a 22 rifle. We carried tent and poles, camped out at Coledale which was a small place then.
There were lots of campers and we walked for miles to a fish& chips shop. I think we ended up with a local who showed us rabbits on the other side of the railway line.
The train had windows which one had to quickly close going through the tunnels to avoid getting black smoke in. The train was old and made of wooden planks, pulled by locomotive burning coal. DH Lawrence is supposed to have lived there for a while.
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I grew up in Austinmer, one suburb south
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Excellent. Train trips are great as long as the train arrives on time and then moves towards its destination. Good story Gerard.
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Viv, we have been busy Sydney trippers, we drove there yesterday, could have stayed with family or friends, but preferred to drive home and sleep in our own bed.
That pleased Milo enormously.
On those two trips I couldn’t bother doing any Christmas shopping, like you I prefer to do it locally, much more relaxed… (all I bought was a good bra from Myers :), getting top-heavy)
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Helvi, I get mine from Myer as well – only ones who stock the one I always want (no bones in it).
We got to the point a few years ago to stop giving each other presents at Christmas time. We concentrate on birthdays instead. Christmas for us is mainly a family get together with good food and wine and bit of a holiday. I give my woodman a bottle of sparkling (he is also in charge of our tip/transfer station where we meet regularly!).
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Viv, we don’t give any Chrissie presents to adults any more, only the kids…
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