trains

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Watching a TV programme about the steam trains here reminded me of a very early memory. The railway line ran across the end of our street and one day when I must have been three or four, I remember running inside shrieking with fear form the steaming noisy monster that was a steam train.

My sister and I didn’t go to the nearest school, which would have meant us crossing over the railway lines at Ava station, by footbridge, which our parents obviously thought of as dangerous. Instead we walked a more direct but further route and crossed a main road that was controlled by school patrol. The railway station and that footbridge were defiantly out of bounds.

Not nearly often enough, on some summer days, we would be taken across the shared rail/foot bridge across the Hutt River; there was a playground on the other side. For a while this became a regular outing because of Dad’s bright idea to dispose of the bricks from dismantled chimneys.  Each adult would a few bricks each and drop them into the river.

The bridge caught fire once and though we were not supposed to my sister and I did go to watch, and later went to inspect the damage. I wonder if this contributed to my childhood nightmares about fire.

Aged about 12 we moved to a house very close to Melling Station, but it wasn’t until I went to Secondary school that a train trip became a weekday occurrence. Nothing scary about them now.

We lived close enough to the railway line to see the passing goods and passenger trains. Much to the delight of my young son who one day went racing into the lounge, which was the best vantage point, to watch a ‘bads’ train go past. His childhood logic had figured out that if there were goods trains then there must be ‘bads’ trains too.

Then when I went to Wellington Polytechnic I again commuted by train. All very routine until one awful morning when our train hit another in the Wellington Railyards. Suddenly there was an awful crunching noise and I was thrown forward and wound up on some chaps lap. I don’t remember how we got off, but I do remember a young girl lying by the side of the train groaning in pain. She had been thrown out through the window. She suffered many broken bones. And there I was scared of trains again.