The Christmas poem: Wrong Kind Of Snow
The Sunday Express poet takes a tour behind-the-scenes of our railways in a dire warning to all heading home for Christmas.
We rumbled into London and I stumbled
off the train
“Late again-late again.” the wheels
seemed to say.
Dragging through the city in a veil
of sleety rain
“Fifty minutes late!” I snapped.
But where could I complain?
From Peterborough to Peterhead
From Penge to Purley Oaks
A rail network long the butt of
everybody’s jokes.
I’m not an angry sort of chap but this one
gets my goat.
Commuting might be faster, frankly,
in a dug-out boat
At 10.15 in London, a week to Christmas
Day
“Late-again, late-again.” the platforms
seem to say.
I stomped across the station to a door
marked simply Staff
I bellowed down the corridor, “Hello?”
But all I heard were pan flutes, a woman’s
tinkling laugh
And rather distant echoes from below
“Ah, it seems you’ve found us!” said a
man with twinkling eyes.
Every year our visitors are fewer
The Ministry once sent them to us
last week up to Yule
Welcome to our Network’s Yearly Tour!”
He beckoned me to follow him, down a
flight of stairs.
“The escalator’s broken.” he explained.
This is the Department of Rolling
Non-Repairs.
Here’s where our apprentices are
trained
Carriages and escalators, barriers
and travelators
Constant breakdowns always place an
onus
Firmly on our workforce to get the
process wrong.
Otherwise, they lose their Christmas
bonus.
Passing down the corridor, he led me
to a room
Occupied by one great vast machine.
It blinked and whirred and stuttered
its numbers, dates and lights.
Flagging up locations on the screen
“This,” my merry guide said,
“Is our Toilet Randomiser.
It shuts or opens any carriage loo.
For instance, here’s a gentleman locked
in at Gerrards Cross.
And a lady we’ve embarrassed outside
Crewe.
It works a bit like ERNIE for any
destination
Opening mid-journey or locking at a
station.
Turning off the water taps, limiting the
flushes,
Distributing a fragrance or maximising
blushes.”
“But these are merely fripperies,
the best is yet to go.”
He skipped and clicked his heels
in the air
The chamber you’re about to see is
where we rate the snow
The Leaves Department’s opposite,
just there.”
I stared in mute bemusement where
conveyor belts on show
Monitored by serious-looking men
Trundled ever onwards as hoppers
heaped with snow,
Were labelled on a scale of one-to-ten
‘Potential for disruption.’ said one
they’d shoved aside,
‘Too wet for cancellations.’ said a second.
‘Firm and thick’ a third said.
‘Will block a standard blower.’
Perfect for a breakdown, it was
reckoned.
“You’ve got to know your weather.”
winked the foreman of the team.
“It looks a doddle but the training’s long
For if precipitation is to stymie train
and station.
It’s best that any snow you blame is ‘wrong’
And if there is a failing, from breakdown
to derailing
Regardless of the targets he achieves
We’ll give a bad inspector promotion to
director.
Before we move him up to grading
leaves.
My guide, laughed: “Moving onward –
a thing we rarely ever do.
Since that would mean efficient use of
friction
I’d like to stop at this point to draw
attention to
the single greatest work of British fiction:
The National Railway Traintimes
we’ve sold more piles of these,
Than Tolkien and Rowling put together.
Mind you, we’ve had a headstart with
all the snow and rain
Let’s face it, we’d be nowt without
our weather.
In winter we get snowfall, half an inch
some years!
Failing that, we’ve frozen points and
frost
In summer, there are track fires, in
autumn, good old leaves
Without these huge surprises we’d be lost.
Of course we build in safeguards: our
weekend rail ‘Improvements’.
Engineering Works, we used to call them
The Rail Replacement bus-fleet
a godsend to non-movement.
And since they’re old, it’s easier
to stall them.
Which means that when we use them
on Saturdays and Sundays
We try to clog the nation’s highways too.
Such integrated cock-ups spill over
into Mondays.
Which helps re-boot the misery anew.
My guide glanced at his timepiece,
and noting we were late
He said, “Our tour is subject to delay
And sometimes cancellation but hey,
it’s all been great.
So thanks for choosing Network Tours
today.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed it and haven’t
found it dull.
But now our CEO has just awoken
It’s he who runs Excuses: from track
repairs at Hull
To badgers on the line at Thorpe le
Soken
Overheads at Preston, buckled rails
near Heston
Wiltshire cattle hit by high-speed train.
And when he gets creative there’s
nothing in his league
Disney’s loss was definitely our gain.”
With that, he gestured upwards, towards
a flight of stairs.
My tour cut short without good explanation
I climbed a gloomy staircase, and mused
on these affairs
Emerging, after time, back on the station.
Glancing at my mobile, expecting
in good faith
To find that time had scarcely shuffled on
Or that my genial tour guide, perhaps
had been a wraith.
I noticed now that half the day had gone.
And as I stood there scanning
the electronic boards.
For any signs of hope that I might find
My guide appeared there, grinning,
a charge machine in hand.
“Pay by card or cash? We never mind.”
With this, I wish all travellers a speedy
trip tonight.
Free of consternation and dismay.
God rest you merry readers
...wrong type of snow or right
Let nothing further here cause you delay.