They haven’t been quite as dramatic as Murder on the Orient Express but some of my train travelling adventures have proved to be hair-raising on occasions.
Despite being a person of a certain age, I didn’t have to think twice a couple of weeks ago after I lifted my head from my crime thriller to discover my case had disappeared from the baggage cubicle on the other side of the aisle just behind me.
I was on the iron horse from Dublin Heuston to Westport and it had just screeched to a halt in Athlone. The platform was a melee of embarking and disembarking passengers as I jumped out the door of carriage B and scanned the area for my case. A minute later and I would have missed it.
There it was disappearing off the platform and about to slide down a ramp with, among other things, my new pink suede shoes and leopard print dress for the wedding I had just attended.
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“Stop,” I shout, “I said stop”.
The bearer of my baggage is a handsome young man, as it happens, well-dressed, wearing a long black coat and an autumnal coloured cowl.
“That’s my case.”
As I said, it is a packed platform and now everyone is staring at him, then at me, and then back at him.
“No, this is my case,” he says, half-heartedly.
After I offer the proof that it certainly isn’t, I suddenly realise my train is itching to move on.
So I leave your man in a serious-looking discussion with two Irish Rail personnel, the outcome of which I will never know.
I am shaken as I return to my seat but welcome the applause from the group of Americans, whose luggage happened to be resting in the same cubicle as mine.
“Isn’t she so brave,” one of them drawled.
Not always, I might add. Take the time earlier this summer when I am ensconced on a train from Cork Kent to Heuston, hoping there are no delays for the 45 minute window I have to catch the mid-afternoon service to Westport.
Being an anti-social train traveller, I have developed a great proficiency at closing down small talk and, indeed, present “a friendly but if there happens to be another seat demeanour” which sometimes pays dividends on the quieter services.
It certainly didn’t pay off on this occasion. Within minutes I was joined by two young bucks who were worse for wear and, in the case of the one who did not fall asleep immediately, appeared to be experiencing some very psychedelic thoughts. Fine if he had bloody well chosen to keep them to himself but every now and then he would jump up and share them with the entire carriage, in a variety of different accents.
That was when he wasn’t shouting on his phone to some underworld figure he was due to meet when we reached our destination.
It certainly didn’t help that somewhere in the middle of nowhere, between Mallow and Charleville, our train ground to a halt. To be fair to the old nag, it made a few attempts to stutter to a start but to no avail.
After an interminable wait, the tannoy suddenly cackled and informed us that we were awaiting a new engine to come from Cork Kent. However, it would have to pass us on the other track, go as far as Charleville so it could change on to our track then turn back and reverse to our train.
All I can say is, I thank my lucky stars for the young Australian man who, when the opportunity arose – my nemesis went to the loo – extracted me and my luggage and brought me to an empty seat in the middle of the carriage.
There my sense of relief was so palpable, I was more than happy to listen to the life story of a lovely widow who had joined the train in Limerick Junction.
Ultimately, we stuttered into Heuston two hours after our scheduled arrival. With a rather long wait for the next train to the wild west, I retired to the bar for a well-deserved brandy, the uplifting music of some child prodigy playing the piano on the concourse adding to the sense of freedom and elation.
All I had to do now was avoid any adventures during the second leg of my journey.
For me the uneventful ones are all about eavesdropping on other people’s conversations; eating my picnic of sourdough bread with cheese and mustard sandwiches; craning my neck to see the national school in Tullamore where George, my late father, once taught; checking if that old barge, with wrought iron garden seats and table on its top deck, is tied up under the bridge as we cross the Shannon; disappearing into the mists that play hide-and-seek with the stone walls of Roscommon; watching for the first sign of home and the pyramidal peak of Croagh Patrick.
