Railway poetry

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Good fun this

The Parly

4 A.M. and waiting for the 'Parly'
Me and Jim, and a fellow called Farly
We stood there in the dawn.
As wind blew through the rippling corn.

It came to a wheezing stop, as the guard steped down.
As the 'Parly arrived in this blessed little town.
Newspapers bundles,parcels and tins, onto the platform crazily spilled.
With three brace of pheasents, freshly killed.

I opened the door with a thunk.
In to the corner I gently slunk.
I put my feet on the opposite seat.
I remember no more as I fell asleep.

manna

[Flamingo]

I've got one of my own based on Charles Dickens' famous ghost story The Signalman, which was filmed for TV in the 1970s with Denholm Elliott in the title role. I'll post it here if anyone's interested.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Go for it Flamingo
manna

[Flamingo]

OK now you know who to blame if this kills off the thread!

I first read 'The Signalman' at the age of about 10. At that age the supernatural element was wasted on me, but at least I remembered the tale. Later on I learned that it was actually a chapter in the collection called 'Mugby Junction', which appeared as the Christmas issue of an
annual magazine which Dickens wrote/edited/published. It appeared in about 1865. The full collection had about 9 or 10 chapters, but not all of them were by Dickens himself. I defy anyone to find a better description of what it was like to be on a large railway station on a dark stormy night than is contained in the opening pages of Chapter !, which Dickens did write. We don't meet The Signalman until about Chapter 5, and its full title is 'No. 1 Branch Line : The Signalman'.

The fictional "Mugby Junction" is believed to be based on the actual Rugby, but I don't know what setting Dickens had in mind when he wrote The Signalman. Just my personal view, though, it seems to bear a marked resembalnce to the south end of Clayton Tunnel a few miles north of Brighton (LBSCR). When I photographed there in 1962 there was such a deep cutting with a small signal cabin near the foot, just a few yards short of the tunnel portal. And Dickens would have known all about the serious collision that occurred inside Clayton tunnel just a year or two before The Signalman was written.

THE SIGNALMAN.doc

My version of Dickens' classic short story in verse.

(22 KiB) Downloaded 95 times

[hq1hitchin]

(From the excellent Railway Eye blog)


Lines written in the style of John Betjeman who, if he were alive today, would be most welcome at Reading Station.


Shades of Brunel, Gooch, Stephenson look on most pleased
As a wealthy little man from his job’s released
In canteen, depot, lineside hut hearts are lighter
Grizzled men pass the message ‘They’ve ditched the blighter’

But passing joy is set against a high price paid
Good people gone, a real chance of change delayed
The windy rhetoric of false targets, world class
Are the long, dark nightmare that must quickly pass

So now’s the chance for a Network Rail resurgent
With bold leaders enlightened, vital, urgent
To ensure that when there is no more oil to burn
The age of the train will rightly return.

We also hear that the popular railtour from Reading to Iainland has been cancelled at very short notice and without explanation.

Applications for refunds to the organisers, World Class Railway-tours, have been met by a curt direction that Network Rail will sort out and pay what is necessary once international benchmarking is complete.

[kudu]

OK now you know who to blame if this kills off the thread!

I first read 'The Signalman' at the age of about 10. At that age the supernatural element was wasted on me, but at least I remembered the tale. Later on I learned that it was actually a chapter in the collection called 'Mugby Junction', which appeared as the Christmas issue of an
annual magazine which Dickens wrote/edited/published. It appeared in about 1865. The full collection had about 9 or 10 chapters, but not all of them were by Dickens himself. I defy anyone to find a better description of what it was like to be on a large railway station on a dark stormy night than is contained in the opening pages of Chapter !, which Dickens did write. We don't meet The Signalman until about Chapter 5, and its full title is 'No. 1 Branch Line : The Signalman'.

The fictional "Mugby Junction" is believed to be based on the actual Rugby, but I don't know what setting Dickens had in mind when he wrote The Signalman. Just my personal view, though, it seems to bear a marked resembalnce to the south end of Clayton Tunnel a few miles north of Brighton (LBSCR). When I photographed there in 1962 there was such a deep cutting with a small signal cabin near the foot, just a few yards short of the tunnel portal. And Dickens would have known all about the serious collision that occurred inside Clayton tunnel just a year or two before The Signalman was written.

THE SIGNALMAN.doc

Thanks for the extra detail. The short story is generally held to draw on the Clayton accident of 1861, then the worst accident in Britain, though I believe the setting is transposed a branch line. However, the underlying stimulus was the accident Dickens himself was involved in - Staplehurst in 1865. He never fully recovered and died five years later to the day.

[StevieG]

(From the excellent Railway Eye blog)


Lines written in the style of John Betjeman who, if he were alive today, would be most welcome at Reading Station.


Shades of Brunel, Gooch, Stephenson look on most pleased
As a wealthy little man from his job’s released
In canteen, depot, lineside hut hearts are lighter
Grizzled men pass the message ‘They’ve ditched the blighter’

But passing joy is set against a high price paid
Good people gone, a real chance of change delayed
The windy rhetoric of false targets, world class
Are the long, dark nightmare that must quickly pass

So now’s the chance for a Network Rail resurgent
With bold leaders enlightened, vital, urgent
To ensure that when there is no more oil to burn
The age of the train will rightly return.

We also hear that the popular railtour from Reading to Iainland has been cancelled at very short notice and without explanation.

Applications for refunds to the organisers, World Class Railway-tours, have been met by a curt direction that Network Rail will sort out and pay what is necessary once international benchmarking is complete.

Which must surely include a suite of risk assessments, a value management exercise, reference to past 'lessons learned' workshops (the person who shouted 'There's a novelty!' will identify themselves now!), and a succession of financial forecast review.

[Flamingo]

Thanks for the extra detail. The short story is generally held to draw on the Clayton accident of 1861, then the worst accident in Britain, though I believe the setting is transposed a branch line. However, the underlying stimulus was the accident Dickens himself was involved in - Staplehurst in 1865. He never fully recovered and died five years later to the day.

Have a look at this June 1962 photo of an LCGB railtour passing Clayton Tunnel south cabin. The loco is a K class 2-6-0. Was this location what Dickens had in mind for the setting of 'The Signalman' ?

LCGB Sussex Coast Railtour approaching Clayton tunnel, 24 June 1962

[kudu]

Have a look at this June 1962 photo of an LCGB railtour passing Clayton Tunnel south cabin. The loco is a K class 2-6-0. Was this location what Dickens had in mind for the setting of 'The Signalman' ?

The accident occurred on the up line and the signalman's error was in the South Cabin. I believe the location in a cutting also fits the story. The accident was probably the "Tay Bridge" of its day and so Dickens might well have already known of it in some detail. But seemingly it needed his direct experience at Staplehurst to trigger his imagination, just as it impeded his creative powers in tackling any more full-length novels, his one attempt after Staplehurst remaining incomplete.

Btw, I've produced an account of the Staplehurst crash, but it's not in verse. McGonagall's cornered that market already, I fear.

Kudu

[brsince78]

This take on Auden's famous poem appeared (on the BBC web-site I think BIMBW) when postal services ended on the railway a few years ago:-

This is the Junk Mail crossing the border
Delivered by truck now, that’s the order
None of it wanted, all of it waste
All of it tinged with commercial distaste
Delivering catalogues all unsolicited
Names on the mailing list slyly elicited
“Yearly subscription” – that’s the refrain
“Take out a loan or a time-share in Spain”
Unwanted brochures shrouded in plastic
Thousands of leaflets bound by elastic

All come unbidden, a waste of a trip
Bound for the landfill, bound for the tip
All come by lorries pounding the highways
Blocking the ring road and clogging the by-ways
No more will the Night Mail arrive at the station
Derailed by the forces of privatisation

“Victorian problem – Victorian answer”?
That is an insult to the service they ran, sir
Imagine old Isambard taking this tack
“Sorry we’re late sir, leaves on the track”!
Now, gone is the romance
Gone is the snobbery
The twenty-first century’s Greatest Train Robbery
So while we’re asleep the postman is driving
And the profits of shareholders quietly thriving
To bring us material for which none of us asked
To redress the balance is how we are tasked
Here comes the postman rounding the block
Here comes the postman, here comes his knock
With quickening heart I leap from my bunk
“Anything interesting, dear?”
“Nothing, just junk!”

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Brilliant,one to remember, Long Live BTF.
manna

[StevieG]

'Ere, 'ere!

[Mickey]

Block bells are silent as tired eyes look to the east focusing on the down home signal gantry standing in stark relief against another sunrise. Signal wires hang low to the ground as the old box clock ticks on to 6:am. I'm looking forward to my bed... Micky X Granted it isn't 'Poet laureate' standard but nevermind one can't be good at everything in life...

[52D]

Micky im suprised that this thread has turned out some quality verse i personally like your effort.

[Mickey]

High praise indeed!. Thanks a lot 52D i appreciate your kind comment. Micky L.N.E.R. Encyclopedia 'poet laureate' in residents.