travelling allrite

I would have gone out of my way to avoid this Red Rattler suburban train when it was in operation, but here I am going out of my way to ride in one.  It's the Transport Heritage Expo at Sydney's Central Station. There are stalls, an operational C32 steam locomotive and 86 class electric loco with cabin tours, steam train rides down to Hurstville and back and the Southern Aurora parked at a platform. The latter will always be associated with pandemics to me. I was really sick with the flu that was going around on my first trip to Sydney, aboard a sleeper on the Southern Aurora back in the the early 1980's.  I was here to catch a heritage electric train ride. Initially it was supposed to run to Lavender Bay, down near Luna Park, which would have been fantastic as you can't normally catch trains there, being a storage branch. Unfortunately, that was kyboshed by the authorities and replaced with a return run to East Hills. I had already caught that line in from Padstow, alt...

I'm on my way home. If this train is one time then it is less than one and a half hours until I get off this daylight XPT service from Melbourne to Sydney.  Only it's not daylight any longer. There is nothing to see out the window but blackness.  I should have flown, had tickets to fly. The sky seemed calm, a day between the fierce fronts past and future. Contrails show the way.  But it was a late night, a too early morning, and the train was already at the station, no further effort required. Also it is a chance to relax. I snooze, listen to the soundtracks to the Star Wars prequels, watch Solo on my phone.  Unlike the journey down I do not attempt to connect to the Internet bar a brief check now and then.  All the while the countryside rolls past. The outskirts of Melbourne, the country towns and cities, rolling fields and clouds drifting past beneath a silver sky of ice crystals.  This time I do not force myself to absorb all the details. Now and then I ...

I have caught the train between Sydney and Melbourne many times before, even back to the Southern Aurora as a seven year old, but never have I ridden the day service between Australia's largest cities. Today I changed that. My celebrations of composer John Williams' 90th birthday continue with another concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Only the Sydney Symphony appears to be without a dedicated John Williams concert this year and that means that I have to travel. I already drove to Melbourne for one concert in February , missing out on Adelaide's, and up to Brisbane . I also drove to Adelaide and Melbourne on the school holidays. That's enough driving. So here I am in the train. I'm not used to getting out of bed before 7 AM now. Neither have I had to pack light for a while. With a car you can just toss everything in the boot, but I want to travel only with cabin baggage. For the train it is only supposed to be 5 kilograms in weight, but I know they won...