The railway train ambling along its tracks
Thousands of years echoing in harmony
Shadows receding among lush foliage
Aurora, your strides are always confident
________________
13 September 2025
I am walking around Basel
The city not the herb
I’m not doing a Basel
Because Basel is not a verb
The streets spew tongue twisters
From mouths of many shapes
Beautiful river vistas
With succulent seedless grapes.
In a few hours I wish to emigrate
Set up my life in this efficient city
After a while I understand
It’s not that good, it’s a pity
I’m leaving this multi-lingual haven
Flying to a single language home
knowing the food in the railway station
will satisfy the fussiest gastronome.
David Cox 24/07/24
Trinity Street, Bolton,
it was Jack and Jaya’s first date,
Jack had got there early,
worried he’d be late,
the ticket woman said,
to head for platform two,
“you’ll have to get a move on though,
your train is almost due”,
from Moses Gate to Manchester,
the world went flashing by,
factories and football fields,
beneath a clouded sky,
soon the train screeched to a halt,
with much anticipation,
our young couple disembarked,
and left Victoria Station,
Jack and Jaya walked and talked,
round Manchester for hours,
Jack laughed and said that “their town hall,
is not nice as ours!”,
in Piccadilly Gardens,
Jaya groaned at more of his jokes,
whilst they ate cheese pasties,
and shared a can of Coke,
travelling back Jack wondered,
about a kiss on the cheek,
but Jaya simply smiled and said,
“let’s try Wigan next week…”.
She seemed oblivious to the smattering of lightly falling rain;
He holding her hand...and as much as his very life should
Depend upon this.
Overhead, a commuter train hastening down the clattering track;
And right there, underneath the bridge, suddenly pulling him back,
She halted and gave him a look that spoke so plain.
It was in that moment, head tilted, leaning over...she then planted
That fatal kiss.
Methinks he would forever more chance the perils of Dantes' Flame...
Even being that it might just be the most desperate of chances
For all things to remain the same.
It's a basic track layout
just a circle with you
as the central feature in the middle of it.
My train does not travel anywhere -
why should it? Don't care.
Sometime though
I imagine you onboard the loco
with me,
even though that model steam train
has been discontinued for many years.
Neon lights outlined stalls
in braids of red and green
in the dim cavernous hall
of the railway station.
Muted drum taps of passing feet
and crisscross talk were pierced
by stabbing announcements
of departing trains.
A stairway tunneled upwards
to the street
where a wall of daylight
met squinting eyes.
Stonework still wore the soot
of steam trains long silenced
from impatient panting,
their age had passed.
My age was diesel with its fumes
pumping out incessantly
without pausing for a breath.
Guttural piston beats
pulsed the air with shudder.
Some of us still left home
riding dreams on train tracks
or else sailed them to England on P&O.
Most stayed at home
and waited for the ballot.
Out of step with the sixties
the railway station languished
in its nostalgic façade.
Newspaper banners headlined protests
and the Vietnam war.
Through its ageing concourse
young men moved in haste or haze
towards uncertain destinations
Icy blue water showing through thin ice
Train crossing on the bridge high above
On silver tracks worn slick with the years,
The trestle creaking, boxcars screeching
One after another streaks of daylight
Blipping through the narrow passages,
Housing enormous couplers, air brakes
Occasionally squealing cryptic messages
Graffiti on the sides with sidewalk crayons
Like strange Middle Eastern languages
Moving too rapidly to be translated,
Steam escaping, whistling for a crossing
Several miles on the other side of the river.
written March 8, 2022
A once proud and busy place
built to help the daily race,
railway tracks, like welcoming arms
always there day or night.
Stationmaster always busy
sweeping the platforms, picking up litter,
tending to the flower gardens
oh so proud of all his creations.
Came the day such sad news,
no longer needed what would he do.
Looking up and down the tracks
no sounds of approaching trains,
birds still sang no changes for them
station would become a memory.
Grass and weeds take over a once loved place
no humans no trains such a lonely state.
Windows like eyes peered into space
why me, why me, winds sang imaginary sounds
changes called progress, sweeping the land,
railway stations joining history.
Dead of night, the wind pays a visit
imagination like the sound of lost souls.
Stationmaster revisits his domain,
broken glass, rusted gutters
hanging down like tears of disaster.
He imagines all the scenes gone by
he falls asleep in the peaceful scene
never to wake from his wonderful dreams.
Ole Eighty-seven, rugged and vain,
Serpentine on cold iron rails,
Story filled with strength and pain,
A legendary iron horse tale.
World-renowned freight train of yesteryear,
Lives ever in glory and fame,
A roaring chain without peers,
Ole Eighty-seven, her hailed nickname.
An expression of past golden days,
Its piercing whistle wailed and cried,
In early morn misty haze,
Slithering down the steep mountainside.
Ole Eighty-seven, out of control,
Its air brakes without warning failed,
Hauling a load of black gold,
Down a steep and twisting mountain grade.
Engine to last car, forthwith long gone,
Fondly evoked through song and pen,
Derailed on its final run,
Bringing the end to an idolized train.
Ole Eighty-seven, strong and able,
Railway giant of nobility,
Mayhap as fact and fable,
Railway saga of antiquity.
a stroll beneath this old stone bridge
is a stroll through time and mist
where remnants from another age
and graffiti coexist.
where nitreous oxide cannisters
and weeds and grass combine
to choke the past from the valley floor
of its long lost railway line.
Rushing to the third class
When I was a young student
Undertaking train journeys
Often looking for a window seat.
Amid the track's rhythm
Full of hope for the future
I saw countryside and cities
Leaving behind from the coach window.
The hawkers' calls echoed
Inside the compartment,
A counter point to the beggars' songs,
Their handicap a stark plea.
A clatter of the wheels,
Accompanied the train as it ran,
A sweet soundtrack while running
Through the fields and towns.
Years have passed today
I am a retired person .
Sometimes boarding
A second class compartment,
The third class is gone.
The clatters,horns,whistles,
Hawkers' voices,the beggars' songs-
Even today have not changed.
So I am and my pocket became thin
like when I was a student .
The railway is expanding
So the government’s demanding
That anything that’s standing
In the way must be removed.
Remove the stock brick terraces
Our family homes and premises
For onward comes the nemesis
Of all we’ve known and loved.
Uprooted oaks and plane trees
Will be replaced by steel gantries
But what prayers will fill the chantries
For the soul that’s being crushed?
Only the rapid rattling rale
Of the stuttering high-speed rail
Will be all that shall prevail
Over the nightingale and thrush.
While we just keep on pretending
That our growth is never-ending,
That the world will keep on bending
To the might of human power
And we keep on moving faster
To escape the sure disaster
When we find we’re not the master
Of this world that we devour.
© Barry Freeman 15th May 2021
if the pathways and parklands
of my childhood could talk
they would speak of time crawling
before it could walk.
and when clouds hung like mobiles
on strings from the sky
I would run with my arms out
pretending to fly.
I would 'land' near the steep bank
that looked down on the track
to watch trains pass there daily
before then heading back.
in that long, lost, hot summer
when I never knew time
I would scan the horizon
through the haze on the line.
the dots that grew bigger
would soon thunder past
- they were moments I lived for
that flew by so fast.
but as clouds clouded over
that magic had gone
and as the last train rolled past me
I sensed time had moved on.
In 1821 began by S&DR
the world commenced to travel by railwaycar
Pulled by No 1,the very first locomotive
& christened by Stephenson&Co ....the Active
Unwellness in Railway View
(An Addingham poem)
It was not just the flickering ember
that lit the way to one’s damp musty bed
nor sash cord window panes I remember
stamped with willow patterns of frosty shred,
but the vile grotesque shadows that followed
created on walls of chalk distemper
that drove along shivers standing hair on head.
Bereft of childhood in those haunting days
where tiny feet scurried yet feared to tread
on staid stone slabs that lay on earthen floor
caused an array of warped winter ailments
a Wharfedale river cough a throaty caw.
But apparitions they ne’er go away
serves up the moment every single day.
© Harry J Horsman 2021
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