Trains

I was a little tacker in the fifties but I still remember the lovely old steam trains.  The engines were big and black and puffed steam with little cinders from the burnt coal.  I always had my head out of the window and got cinders in my eyes all the time.  Mum fixed them by spitting on a hankie and then dragging the spitty bit over my eye until it picked out the cinder.  I find that all most unsanitary nowadays but in the fifties that was the remedy.  The carriages were beautiful and if you have ever watched Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express they looked exactly like that.  The later trains did not have a corridor along one side but simply two long seats that faced each other. The trains had real leather seats and wooden walls.  There were luggage racks above the seats.  It was possible to place a sleeping child into the rack and all that you had to remember was to get the child down when the train reached your stop.  The windows opened and lowered with leather straps with holes like that of a belt.  At the end of the journey the engine was disengaged from the carriages and driven under a water tower and the boiler filled.  At Semaphore, once the train had taken on water the whole engine was turned around on a clockwork track and then shunted along the secondary line until it reached Military Road and then switched back on to the track where the carriages waited.

One of the things that Mum liked was that there was one non-smoking carriage, however, she was furious if there were no seats left.  She would with bad grace, sit in the smelly carriage with a pained look on her face.  I am sure she would have like to cover her face with a hankie but I don't remember her doing it. My anxiety about trains stemmed from Mum's stressful rushing down the platform in search of our carriage.  I was always sure we would miss the train before she managed to get us boarded.  Once on the train I was fine.  

Part of the railway track to Semaphore (now it is Outer Harbour) rises up in the air just before the Port Adelaide Station.  (That station I must add was then a huge barn of a building not the skimpy platform it has now. The reason for the gigantic station was that the Waterside Workers caught the train there and walked along to the wharves.) The problem was and is that I am scared of heights.  I was always terrified during this part of the journey.  Once past Port Adelaide the train runs around a huge bend and I always sang to myself, "Around the bend, around the bend" until we pulled up in Ethelton.  Even though I am an extremely mature woman now if I travel the line I still find myself muttering, "Around the bend................"  

The absolute best part of the journey was the terminus at Semaphore.  The train journey heralded a lovely day on the beach with swimming and sideshows and Mr. Smith's little kiosk that sold Choc-ices and pink sugar mice with a white thread for a tail.  At the end of the day I had a ride on the Merry-Go-Round and then there was the journey home with a little sun burn and lots of sand between toes and a little tin bucket full of shells.  Train journeys are not so pleasant now and do not engender the same romance of yesteryear. You cannot put your head out of the window, there are no cinders to get in your eyes and there is no leather upholstery nor beautiful wooden walls.  Even though these trains do not grace suburban lines any-more they are still alive in my memory.  Not only are the old trains gone but the line to Semaphore has been replaced by car parking. 

Progress is inevitable I know but I really do miss the old trains, old trams and in fact old anything.  I can feel my 'When I was a girl' coming at any tick of the clock.  Well when I was a girl catching a train was exciting. Catching a train these days is an means to an end there is no pleasure just a swifter service with more seats.  Vale to all the lovely old trains.