On The Trains

When I stepped into the familiar old Woodend Railway Station (opened in 1861), I felt a surge of excitement. I was about to catch the train to Melbourne and regardless of how many times I’ve done this, I still feel a sense of anticipation I find hard to explain. I still get a small thrill out of leaning into the little glass-partitioned ‘station master’s’ post and asking for my return ticket.

These days, you need a Myki card (for this part of the Bendigo Line at least), onto which you load your fares and scan yourself in and out of each station – all terribly modern; and the ‘station master’ isn’t necessarily a man, or even a master at all, so much as a V-Line employee. Nonetheless, I do it all eagerly, like a child going on a first adventure.

I’m not the only person to feel this way about train journeys. Trains in fact, seem to stir passionate feelings in many people.  Think about how many ‘train appreciation societies’ there are worldwide, how many television shows and books dedicated to train travel, and the number of creative people who have claimed a strong sense of ‘’getting in touch with themselves’ when they’ve embarked on train journeys. I’m not alone in appreciating this singular form of transport and I celebrate the fact that Victoria still has an intricate network of V-Line stations and tracks for me to explore.

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For me, a train journey is about a kind of meditation, a tuning in – letting my mind wander, unfettered by the need to stay on the road avoiding collisions with other cars. It’s about watching, listening, both inside the carriage and out. It’s about studying people and surreptitiously listening to their conversations. It’s about watching the landscape slide by, seeing things not visible from the roads – the industrial and the semi-industrial, the farm buildings and the side roads that lead to who knows where? It’s about sliding passed the edges of towns, the edges of ordinary Australia and wondering who lives there and what makes all these places tick.

For some people this is routine - the daily commute that takes them to Melbourne to work. You can pick the regulars. They have an air of certainty about them. They know which seats they prefer, which way they want to face and whether or not they want to sit looking directly at two other people, or at the back of the chair in front of them.

They seat themselves quickly and set about their morning rituals, easing themselves into the comfortable, familiar patterns of getting from one place to another without stress. Some read the newspaper; others bring out a novel to read. Some tune into their cell phones, others open up computers or iPads and fiddle about looking busy and engaged – but not with each other. And others make a more obvious statement by donning headphones and plugging into their favourite music, pretending the rest of the passengers don’t exist.

Then there are the talkers. I’ve asked a number of travellers their preference and for the talkers, it’s all about making connections and nurturing friendships. Some sit beside the same people several times a week and chat about their lives. They amuse each other; they learn from each other. It’s a kind of accidental friendship – one that may possibly have never have happened outside of the train environment. But like morning coffee, it has become part of their daily commute.

Away from everyday lives, the disparate gathering of passengers has the potential to open doors on lives we would never have dreamed of encountering. And our lives can be the richer for it. Starting a conversation with a complete stranger doesn’t always work but it’s fun to imagine what you might learn in the hour (in this case), that you’re seated with others. It can be a surprising and humbling experience – and a salutary lesson in not judging people by their appearances.

On the other hand, being in close proximity to a compulsive chatterer for an hour can be frustrating – especially if, like me, you’re given to watching, listening, ‘meditating,’ and quietly thinking on a train journey. That’s where I found myself on my latest trip - sitting opposite two women, who I quickly gleaned had boarded the train in Bendigo. Given their conversation, I assumed they knew each. It later transpired they didn’t at all and it wasn’t until I was a good twenty minutes into the journey that I realised one woman – late fifties I’d guess – never stopped talking the whole way.

With grey hair tied back in a scrappy pony tail, she sat in her purple polar fleece and black trousers, clutching her black handbag, talking about whatever seemed to come into her head. I pretended to be asleep, so I could listen without being dragged into a one-sided conversation that I knew would make my head spin.

“I love kangaroos,” she said, looking out a big mob gathered outside of Gisborne, “but you have to watch them.

“I was hanging out the washing one day and I sensed something nearby. I turned around and there was a great big red standing right behind me. He just picked me up in his front paws. I’m only little, as you can see and they’re so big. He didn’t hurt me, he just put me down again and hopped off but they can kill the animals you know.”

I was riveted. I kept listening as her mind darted from one topic to another.

“Chinese and Thai food…. it’s all the same if you ask me….”

“He’s a nice fellow – not as nosy as the other one.”

“Why do these schoolgirls wear their skirts so short in winter? I just don’t understand it.”

“It’s not the sort of place you want to live now,” she pronounced of Footscray.

It was as we pulled out of the station, leaving the short-skirted girls clustered together on the platform, that she leaned over and tapped me on the knee and pointed to her shoes.

“Look we’ve both wearing black pants with black shoes – and your shoes are covered in stuff just like mine – are you a cleaner too?”

It was one of the rare occasions when I was lost for words. And I decided on the spot, that I would be buying nugget in Melbourne, to try and conceal some of the wayward paint splodges that had found their way to my shoes. I could almost hear my late mother butting into the conversation with a “see….I told you, you should have cleaned your shoes.”

These are the moments that stay with me – the human encounters that give every day its colour and texture. You don’t have to be in a train to experience it of course but in that close proximity to strangers over an extended period, it’s more likely to happen.

 It’s ironic that, in a world where are we technologically connected to more people than in any other point in human history, we are all too often, completely disconnected. Remember those people tuned out behind their ear phones, the ones glued to cell phones and laptops? I’m not saying they’re not learning something new but they’re certainly missing a golden opportunity to interact and learn about people and the human condition… in all its varied and unique guises.

There’s something honourable and enriching about reaching out to others, about fostering the unseen connections between us. There can be irritations and annoyances but there can also be immensely rewarding encounters that help us to see ourselves better, more fully.

And the truth of the matter is – we never know WHO we are sitting beside.  It may be someone who knows your cousin; it could be the sister of an old lover; it could be your grandmother’s old school friend; it could be the brother of someone you once worked with. Those small surprises, those interactions with strangers are  the tiny jewels of a train journey.