When the trolley buses were voted a failure and abolished

I was allowed to take the train to school in the city. It hissed

Into Muirend station at 8-34am, the 2-6-4 steam engine pulling

at least five coaches, which let me reach the start of my school-day

in Elmbank Street by 9-15, a sad routine for eight years of my lifetime.

But I was an aficionado of trains long before that, since one north line

Took me to my granny in Aberdeen, another to our holidays

On Speyside, and the line to Uplawmoor bordered our estate

To the west. Parents forbade us to go there so of course we did,

To play in the surplus carriages parked in sidelines and shit

In their loos. Whenever I saw a train on track my imagination

Would be engaged, envisaging its journey and destination

Even if I knew nothing of it, and speculating on its travellers headed

Home from work or off to London, with eyes fixed on me spread-

Eagled on the embankment. As I hated school, these trains became

The promise that this was not all, there were other better places

for people that would be accessible. Still today, when my old

body does its interval training at the football pitch next the coastal

Line north, I pause if a train, local shuttle or Azuma Express, goes

By, telling me me that if frailty of muscles or of mind shows

a time is near that puts an end to all this bother

yet I can hope there will be a train, one way or the other.