There's something about a train.......

As I step down from the carriage, my gloved hand pulls down the front of my hat to thwart the biting wind from my face and I scurry along the crowded platform toward the rails. I hear the train’s wail wounding the iron to a slow screeching stop, and I am seduced by her moans as they cut through the frost of the slumbering winter night.

It’s a clandestine affair that bathes my soul in romance as I anxiously wait to board. A conductor, with whom I am familiar, takes my carpetbag and gently touches my elbow as he escorts me up and into the train.

 ‘Your accommodations have been readied, madame.’

I follow down the narrow corridor which is lined with windows on one side, frost clinging and dripping down the outside of the glass, and shiny warm oak panels surrounding portals-of-entry on the other side, contradicting.

The conductor opens a ‘threshold’ then steps aside as I enter. Giving me a moment to look around the room, he waits for a sign of permission before entering. Once inside, he inquires as to the suitability of the quarters, sets my bag in an over-head compartment, then leaves.

As the conductor yells, ‘All aboard‘, the train begins to slowly pull away from the plat-form, leaving my former-self waving me goodbye. I remove my coat, hat and gloves, and slip into a comfortable pair of slippers just as the train picks up speed. I sit in a chair next to the window, pillow in lap, and watch as the existence of chaos fades into the darkness.

A light rap filters into the room. I look down at the time-piece on my wrist: 10:10pm.

‘Enter‘ I say, and the conductor opens the door, tray in hand.

'Perhaps madame would care for a night-cap?'

I am on my way into a new year, and life is good.

oil on canvas: Railway Platform
Heather MacNeish

Photo of the night train in snow
Photographic Artist unknown to this writer
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