Mystery train

Boarding the mystery train

Sketch
Daniel Carey

WHEN Iarnród Éireann announced last Sunday morning that the 7.45 train to Dublin would be delayed ‘for approximately 45 minutes’, I considered walking up the line to look for members of Westport Town Council. After all, disgruntled councillors had vowed only weeks ago to lie across the rail tracks in protest at poor services. “Whatever else happens,” I muttered to myself, “I hope Declan Dever hasn’t ruined his nice leather jacket.”
Then I remembered two things. Firstly, the Cathaoirleach had said there was no point lying on the tracks in Westport; rather, they would go ‘where the most possible disruption’ could be caused. Secondly, hadn’t peace and love broken out – or at least a temporary cessation of hostilities – following Iarnród Éireann representative Myles McHugh’s visit to the Council chamber last week?
The answer was more straightforward – the vehicle was awaiting a driver. Having been in Heuston Station seven days previously, I remembered hearing that services elsewhere had been disrupted because of a dispute over driver rostering. In truth, the announcement hadn’t come as a complete shock, not least because it wasn’t delivered until three minutes after the official departure time, at which point there was a grand total of zero passengers on board.
So we took our places and Iarnród Éireann apologised for the delay, adding that complimentary tea and coffee were being served in the cafeteria. One twentysomething passenger mused: “Does complimentary mean free?” The individual opposite him replied: “I think so, yeah.” That was enough for the first guy, who said: “It’s worth taking a look at anyway.”
Having endured my share of industrial strife in a past life, I felt no anger, just amusement – after all, my plan to be present for the start of the Mayo Stages Rally in Castlebar was, ironically, likely to be disrupted by a driver. “Gentlemen … start your engines!” sounded like a particularly hollow request on Sunday morning, though one suspects petrol-heads don’t really deal in rosters – or, indeed, travel on trains. It’s certainly the first time I was late for an event in Castlebar having been ready to leave Westport before 8am.
Sitting inside the train (where at least we avoided the rain), I recalled overhearing a bus driver tell a friend in Dublin the previous day that ‘they’re looking for train drivers’. The same man ran a slightly stricter ticket policy than that deployed in Westport last Sunday, where none of the passengers were asked for tickets. “For f*** sake,” he told one self-described 15-year-old who sought a child’s return ticket but said he ‘looked old for his age’. “If you had asked for a student return, then you’d have had some chance!”
At 8.20am, the call for ‘free tea and coffee’ was repeated over the intercom, though disappointingly, nobody asked if ‘free’ meant ‘complimentary’. At 8.38am it was announced that the driver was ‘currently going through his safety checks’, and that we ‘should be under way in three or four minutes time’. At 8.44am, 59 minutes after the scheduled departure time, we chugged out of the station.
Better late than never, and in that respect, there’s an interesting post-script. Having decided that I didn’t fancy risking another hour-long delay in Castlebar that night, I went to the bus stop on Stephen Garvey Way at 9.40pm. Plenty of time, one might think, to get the Westport-bound bus which was due five minutes later. An hour and five minutes later, the vehicle was nowhere to be seen and I eventually gave up. Anyone who tells you there aren’t enough hours in the day to read all 12 sections of The Sunday Times has obviously never travelled on CIE.