Station Stories

everyday stories

Last week

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School Holiday artworks on the station platform

Ugh! All last week my body was very After Easter – meaning it kept telling me it wants to stay home, sleep in, watch tv and eat lots and lots of Easter eggs. But we must work and I console myself that if I hadn’t gone into work I would have missed;
– A small boy making squeaking noises to mimic the cry of the flocks of rainbow lorikeets that are feasting the gum trees around the station
– A young man wearing bright gold sneakers and carrying a flower a la Oscar Wilde.
– A man metal detecting on the grass nearby looking for old pennies. He found only bottle tops, squashed deodorant bottles and an American one cent piece. “I look on it as a deep clean of the landscape,” he said.
– A chat with young men from the Graz (Austria) Boys Choir
– Lots and lots of happy school holiday kids with their parents and grandparents and stuffed animals bought at the zoo. Noisy but nice.
On the other hand if I hadn’t been at work I would not have the bruise on my lower stomach that I got from trying to help an elderly man manoeuvre his scooter inside the train. He panicked and reversed by mistake and wedged me against a railing. Ouch!

Children enjoying the Royal Park Station Children’s Library (some at least)

Train Surfers revisited

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An odd incident this week. A kid on a bike – maybe about 13/14 – came riding past the station and slowed to a stop.
“Hello! Do you recognize me?” he called out. “You used to yell at me and my friends for riding on the back of trains.”
I’ve been doing this job for 14 years now and I expected abuse at this point.
“I was only trying to save your lives,” I said defensively.“ It’s a very dangerous thing to do.”
“Yeah! We’ve stopped doing it now,” he said
And he turned round and cycled back up the hill.

Marco Pool?

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It’s been New Year’s Spring Break in China and the Zoo has been busy with Chinese families coming here to see the astonishing Australian wildlife.  I was fascinated when I saw a little Chinese boy with a most interesting windcheater bearing the words.  Marco Pool since 1254.  I wondered what was going on with this windcheater.

I assumed it was a knock off of the Marco Polo clothes company, but why since 1254.  When I looked it up on line I couldn’t find a clothing company but I discovered a very nice looking swimming center in the Philippines called Marco Pool.  But its unlikely to have been established in 1254 which was before the days of chlorinated pools.

The oddest thing is that the date is the famous traveler’s birth date.  So if you are going to get the birth date right why not the rest.  Alas I will never know what was in the mind of the designer of this windcheater but I can’t help suspecting there is a leg pull somewhere here.

 

Sunflowers Fieldwork II : The colonies : Ben Morieson strikes again.

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Arrived at my station on Monday to discover something lovely had appeared over the weekend.


These delightful little shopping trolleys planted with sunflowers are chained to fences at stations all along the Upfield line and apparently all along the Hershey Electrical rail line in Havana as well. The chaining means that those who are amused by pushing shopping trolleys under trains will hopefully find it too much trouble to do.

Sunflowers with morning glories at Brunswick station

The trolleys have been fascinating people all week and several times I just missed taking meltingly cute pictures of small children in sun hats looking up at them. (I shall keep trying but the little so and so’s move so quickly) The adult passengers ask me if it’s a railway initiative. When I tell them it’s an art project a lot of them make harrumphing noises indicting the serious practical part of them is disapproving of such frivolity. But I always get the feeling that underneath another part of them is delighted. Every time I look, someone is lingering near the shopping trolley reading the little yellow tags.

Myself I think it’s wonderful to be part of an art project and it’s a great use of shopping trolleys
At Zoo station someone is watering the trolleys. At the Junction the staff have adopted theirs and keep them well watered. The trolleys at the unmanned stations are fairing less well. This week’s heat has made them look sad and dried out and I wish people would kidnap them and take them home. As far as I know none of them have traveled yet, though iIhave heard people plotting.
Ben Moreison, the artist, was responsible for this was also responsible for Fieldwork 1, the huge field of sunflowers grown in a piece of waste ground near Macaulay station back in 2014. I’m glad to see he’s still sunflowering. Here’s the link to the video of it. I was a really pleasure to see the field everyday from the passing train.

http://www.benmorieson.com.au/media.html

This project is part of the Havana Biennale in Cuba and involves a series of active art projects in Australia and Cuba based on or around the Hershey Train, Havana and the Upfield Railway Line, Melbourne under the auspices of RMIT and a number of other organisations both here an in Cuba

Hershey Electric Railway line in Cuba. Courtesy of Wikimedia

Keys

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It was only after the station door swung shut behind me that I realized I’d forgotten to bring either of my sets of keys out with me. Locked out! Not a good start to the day. Since it was still early I thought I’d got back to the Junction and get another set. It’s a lengthy process – ½ an hour out of a 6 hour shift – because the trains don’t meet up. Back at the Junction I couldn’t find the master keys and no one there knew where they were kept, so I looked through the key register and signed out something that was supposed to be the correct key.

Of course when I got back to my station it didn’t open the door. Damn!

I didn’t like to spend another ½ hour getting another set of keys so I thought I’d just hang around for an hour until the cleaner came and let me back in with his key. So I stood around helping people with tickets and directions for the next two trains getting more and more thirsty and in need of a pee, until… Eureka moment! It occurred to me that all trains drivers have the key to stations so that they can pop in and use the toilets if desperate. It’s not really o.k. to do anything that might delay a train, but I thought if I was quick…

The driver of the 1.04 was a kindly woman who was happy to help me re-open my station door and I rushed in and shoved both keys in my pockets before indulging in visit to the toilet, a nice drink of water and a spot of lunch. Adventure over with no one much noticing my inadequacies.

It was a rude shock therefore, when about an hour later Control rang. Apparently at the other end of the 1.04 train, an intoxicated man had been having an argument with his female companion who he’d proceeded to shove out onto the platform at my station. He’d been arrested at Flinders Street later.

That it should be that train of all trains!

The Control man had been viewing the CCTV footage and seen me rushing about. “Had I seen anything of the fight further up the train? Had I been scared by it?” he inquired sympathetically.
He laughed when I told him that I’d been locked out so I assumed I wasn’t in any trouble, but I felt very sorry that I was too involved in my own small drama to help a victim of domestic violence. I fear this may be the way it often happens. I can only hope since she wasn’t there when I’d come out of the station she hadn’t been too badly hurt.

I hear bells …

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Yesterday a young man I usually avoid caught me talking to one of my regulars.  He’s an unusual, dare I say, unwell young person.

“Did you know that the boomgates here use Westinghouse Bells?”  He broke in breathlessly.  My regular slid off with a look of alarm while he deluged me with all kinds of technical detail about boomgate bells which, to be fair, I really didn’t know and don’t mind knowing.  Apparently they are not all the same and his superior hearing can pick out the ones that sound like church bells or much bassier like a boom box which indicates apparently modern electrical bells.  Of course now I think of it this all could be his imagination but I must make a note to listen more closely to boom gates.

On the whole I thought him improved since the last time I met him.  He looked cleaner. And last time he made lots of creepy enquiries about what I sounded like when I pee. Not good.

So does this count as a Christmas Post?  Hmm!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my lovely subscribers.  May you all have someone to listen to you this Christmas.  And Thank you!

Naked Dancing with pot plants at Flinders Street Station

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Two young men, two stolen potplants and a suggestive dance.
Last Saturday night two young men were arrested after dancing naked and performing a “lewd act” while in possession of two pot plants stolen from Melbourne Town Hall. Given that one of our Metro Trains in the back ground, I feel reasonably confident this isn’t a hoax.  (I’m also glad the pot plants weren’t involved in the lewdness as this would have confirmed all of Cory Bernardi’s worst fears about same sex couples)

2 Men Stripped Naked, Rooted, & Danced Around A Plant At Flinders St Station


Its a station story that writes itself. The Daily Mail said [Shocking moment a couple are caught on camera having SEX in front of horrified families on a platform at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station]
but at 11 pm even on a Saturday night it seems unlikely that many people on the platform would have been under 18.
Also it looks more like a cuddle than any particularly pelvic action.
You can even watch the video footage although be warned the ad before is longer than the footage itself.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/11/27/10/03/naked-men-arrested-after-lewd-act-at-flinders-street-station.
p.s. its not the same advertiser every time. Presumably a number of companies are happy to be associated with this kind of activity.

I guess the fact that I took more time wondering what the potplants were than anything else is a sign of my advanced age.

Infidelity??

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A young couple regularly waiting at the station are clearly very much in love/lust.  They seem to spend the whole time draped over each other exploring each others tonsils to the occasional discomfort of tourists from more repressed countries who seem to look at me to “keep things nice”.  What I find interesting is that the other day I saw one of the couple holding hands with someone else and leading them towards home in a way I would not like to see my own partner doing.  Yet the next day the original couple were back in place.  I do wish I could take the presumably deceived member of the couple aside and warn them they are about to get their heart broken, but in no way is this appropriate or probably even wanted. I may be misinterpreting the whole thing.

My friend, Melbourne arts and culture critic Mark Holsworth

https://melbourneartcritic.com

 

told me of a piece of railway graffiti he once saw that seems pertinent to this situation.

“Just remember I didn’t give it to you”

Tiger Whiskers

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“Hey do you want to see a tiger’s whisker!” cried one of the Zoo Volunteers. “One of the keepers gave it to me because it was my last day.”
The romance of it! A really truly whisker from a really truly tiger in my very own hands.
I thought it would be soft but it was remarkably hard something like the vane of a bird’s feather only sharper both on the ends and along the edge. A delicate and at the same time savage thing with just the tiniest splodge of black on the tip. It looked like it could be used a needle for sewing a delicate fabric like sea silk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_silk or a dart used for harem assassinations.
Any other suggestions?

De-training

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Edward Burne-Jones 1898 The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon

Recently I spent a Saturday shift de-training people (which is not nearly as exciting as defenestrating people or even as exciting as training people)
You walk down the train carriages making sure everyone is out before the train turns around and goes back to the city. It’s a simple job that mostly involves waking up people who are sleeping or engrossed in their ipods.
The only sleeper I had, a young man in black and a cloud of alcohol fumes, just wouldn’t wake up.
I shook him calling” Mate! Mate! Wake up!” (the magical railway incantation to awaken sleepers – I wonder if it works on Sleeping Beauty and the King under the Mountain- see above) The train driver also tried. No Joy!
We shrugged and gave up.
“I hope he’s still alive,” I said feeling guilty. He had felt warm enough.
“I once heard of a dead guy who travelled round on the London Underground for three days before anyone noticed him,” said the driver cheerfully.
This gruesome story pricked my conscience and after I’d finished checking the train I went back and tried again, this time shaking harder and yelling “Mate! Mate!” louder.
After a while the man stirred, lifted his head and regarded me with bleary eyes. I told him the train was going back to town. He put his head down and went back to sleep.
But at least I’d made sure he was alive! Job done.