Rail Renegades
January 14, 2001
All this unemployment is thirsty work.
It’s actually motivating me, strangely, to wake up early. To get out and walk around, to exercise. To buy the newspaper. To pay attention to what’s going on around me.
Help. I’m turning into a well-balanced human being.
One of my more recent events of anti-slothery involved a grandoise plan to catch a train, ride it to the large shopping centre a couple of train stations from here, and have a bit of an afternoon there. Then, walk the markedly long distance back home. About a two hour walk, I guess.
I was pleased with myself for actually initiating something so ridiculous. I figured I’d better action it while I was still in the mood, so my walkman was pocketed and I powered off down the road towards the train station.
After a classically Sydney Cityrail-esque period of waiting for an overdue train, one of the old rattlers crawled into the station like a desert explorer desperately clawing his way towards an oasis. I sat back, relishing the few moments of air-conditioned coolness before I was to disembark.
The train arrived at the next station, and some people left the train. After waiting for a while longer (and more grumbling under my breath), the train eventually left the station - only to come to a complete stop about 100 metres later.
Cityrail is notorious for strange train carriage movements (I’ve been in a train before that left the platform backwards for ten metres, before lurching forward), but after the train had stopped for what seemed like over ten minutes, I wondered if there was a problem. I peered out the window at the network of rail tracks around me - there didn’t seem to be anything wrong.
Nothing wrong until the train driver lumbered into the carriage and looked at me agast, that is.
‘You don’t listen to the announcements, do you?’ he sneered at me. ‘The train’s terminated.’
I was positive there had been no announcements and advised the driver of this.
‘Oh, there was,’ he dismissed. ‘Now you’ll just have to sit here for two hours until it leaves again,’ he explained with all the joy of a little boy whose prank has been beautifully executed. With that, he pranced out of the carriage towards the rear of the train.
‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ I called out to him, desperate not to be stuck in a stinking hot box of metal in the middle of a rail yard for the rest of the afternoon.
‘No!’ he shrieked emphatically, before gleefully locking the guard’s door behind him and escaping to the next carriage. Incidents like this must be the highlight of his day.
I walked to the doors of the carriage and looked outside - rail tracks snaked around me in every direction. I was stuck in the middle of a dirty river of rusty steel.
Reasoning that I was going to be stuck here for a while, I thought I may as well amuse myself. I entered the next carriage and began looking for a newspaper someone may have left behind.
I had just checked the lower level of the carriage and was about to enter the upper level, when a voice from behind me yelled ‘HEY!’
As I jumped and turned in surprise, a muscular thirtysomething man with faded tattoos in a singlet jumped in front of me. ‘Oh,’ he spoke in a quieter tone. ‘I thought you were the train driver again.’
‘You’re stuck on here too?’ I asked, even though it was fairly apparent he wasn’t exactly a member of Cityrail staff.
‘Yeah, the bastards,’ the man cursed. ‘They didn’t announce this was terminating, I swear.’
‘That’s what I said to the driver before,’ I agreed. Seeing as were going to be spending the next two hours together, I held out my hand.
‘I’m Jeb,’ I introduced myself.
‘I’m Snake,’ the man replied and smiled, revealing a mouth of red gums. He produced a Benson and Hedges and wedged it between his gums.
‘So,’ he began, sparking up his cigarette lighter. ‘We gettin’ outta here or what?’
‘What, just walk back to the train station or something?’ I asked somewhat pointlessly. It was quite easy to escape by using the walkways between carriages - they featured a slim space on either side to jump off if you climbed over the handrails.
‘I’m not gonna farken stick around here,’ Snake said, leaving a wet mark on the filter of his cigarette. I realised that smoking between your gums was pretty much the same as holding a cigarette between your teeth while you smoked it, but then again we’re talking about a semi-derelict named Snake.
Snake kicked open the door to the carriage throughfare, did a neat little twisty jump and landed perfectly on the train track nearby. I sensed he was used to escaping from places on very short notice.
I tried to recreate Snake’s twist, but succeeded in twisting only my ankle upon landing. Squinting into the distance, I could make out the train station. A fence surrounded us on either side, which would have been impossible to climb. I quickly made my way to one of the fences to avoid being run over by one of the many trains passing by.
Snake strode forward quickly and I limped after him, when I noticed the driver of our train poke his beany little head out of the driver’s window. He made a yelling noise, then threw his door open and began chasing after us.
I performed a parody of running as I struggled to escape with my useless left ankle. Ahead of us, another rail employee emerged from a shed-type structure to investigate what the noise was all about, and saw Snake running towards him. Sensing immediately the guy was up to no good, he ran forward and grabbed him by the arm. It was shortly after that the train driver grabbed myself as well.
‘You can’t bloody run around on the train tracks, you dickheads,’ the driver cursed.
‘We didn’t escape to run around on the train tracks, fuckwit!’ Snake spat. ‘We wanted to get back to the station. It’s your fault, too.’
‘Shut up and get back on the train,’ the driver replied.
‘I’ll get me lawywers onto you,’ Snake promised. I figured Snake had experience with the legal system before.
We were marched back onto the train and laughed at - quite demoralising, really. Snake was quietly fuming and I was very hesitant to speak to him again for fear he would explode.
The train driver and the other Cityrail man ordered us to sit where we were, and they’d be right back. As soon as they’d left the carriage, Snake sprung up and headed towards the upper level of the carriage.
‘Where you going?’ I called out.
‘Gonna screw with his head,’ Snake replied. ‘Get up here.’
I climbed upstairs and stood with Snake. We heard the carriage door open downstairs and the driver clomp to where we were sitting, followed by a muttered swear word.
‘Now,’ Snake whispered, and ran towards the other end of the carriage. We slunk downstairs just as the driver presumably made his way upstairs. We heard more swearing and the footsteps above us made their way back down the stairs they came.
‘Next carriage,’ Snake ordered, and we quickly ran into the carriage, quietly closing the door behind us. Unfortunately, we ran straight into the other Cityrail man, who seemed quite surprised but also angry.
Like naughty schoolchildren, we were ordered back towards the front carriage where an eye could be kept on us. Legal threats from Snake flew forth and laughs from the train drivers.
Around half an hour later - not two hours - we began our journey again. Relieved and weary, I disembarked at my regular station - I simply couldn’t be bothered after the ordeal. Snake disembarked the train soon after me, and yelled a message into the driver’s compartment. Something about the driver’s mother’s sexual tendancies.
The driver leaped out of the carriage and began to chase after him, then retreated to his carriage, waving a fist at myself for good measure.
I reminded myself as I walked home that one of the reasons I’m moving to the city next week is so I’m not trapped on trains with sadistic drivers and tattooed westies named Snake.
