The Flyer

The Flyer
The Newcastle to Sydney flyer was a grand experience, a regular trip which weekly commuters, travelers and children rode frequently to their destinations. Generally from Sydney it took around two and a half hours to arrive at the end of the line, Newcastle railway station. I rode this train many times and have sizable memories of the summer journeys and travels they took me upon. They began first as mere visits for holidays to my grandmothers house where my sister lived where I would spend two weeks at a time with them. The train was long and measured up against the concrete platform. A yellow painted line ran its whole length as an edge to keep passengers safe behind as hurtling trains pulled in and out of the busy station. I can still smell the seats in the cars of the train and the feel of the timber, smooth and polished along the widow sills and door frames. The diesel you could taste and the smoke filled the air breaking through the tears of arriving and departing loved ones and as business men carried their newspapers and excited children embarking on holidays lined the fast tracks. There were smoking and non-smoking cars, a buffet car which you would courageously leave your seat to fight the jostling movement of the train to reach for a sandwich and coffee. The thrill also of changing cars whilst in motion was like being that of today's Indiana Jones jumping the roof of one car to the next and holding on for dear life, a fierce wind blowing and eyes focused downward toward the hardened steel tracks, silver streaks disappearing beneath you! yet whilst in reality you would only have to open the door at the end of the carriage and pass over the two plates of landing coupled together with chains and linked hand rails on either side which jerked away from each other whilst trying to cross them in motion, then breaking through the noise barrier and the up draught of air into the next car with a thud of the door closing behind you locking out the volume and what seemed to be a gale force wind.
Central station Sydney was a concrete jungle of activity with sounds too many to recall, trains coming and going, departures and baggage trolleys moving up and down the platforms, deep sounding horns from trains departing the station, radio announcements and clocks that would surround the place with times of all the traffic but the most magnificent sight were those endless steel tracks intertwined, streaming forward for miles and miles crossing over one another and branching out into several different directions as your eyes would follow them as far as possible. The sounds of the approaching metal bullets and the rickety sounds of those timer matchbox type trains rolling into the station made the atmosphere complete. What a commotion! a junket of railway fever. Blue uniforms and whistles, loud speakers, tickets and litter blown around the tracks as the heavy locomotives hurtled their way into position alongside the packed commuters. The air pushed hair around faces and flipped hats off, threw newspapers around like mother nature itself, Central Station was alive, 24/7.
The seats were bouncy and almost leathery but not quite, with the N.S.W. Railways emblem punched into the seats at random intervals, the smell was like a new car smell and the floors were smooth and slippery. The windows rattled and could be opened almost enough to get your head out of, but the oncoming train passing inches from your face was enough to put an end to reaching out further than you wanted too. The boom of explosives placed on tracks by signal men notified those working up ahead of the upcoming locomotive. Tickets please! yelled the conductor who would examine every passengers ticket and then punch a hole into it with a bright silver hole punch. The tickets were printed on to thin green card and stamped with your destination and the date of travel.
All aboard! time to leave, the horn would blow and the doors to the cars would close, the air conditioning system would get louder and then the jolt as we all lurched forward would indicate we are finally departing the station. Last goodbyes were said through glass and waves from one aisle to the next to those left standing along side the huge engine with the endless stream of boxcars passing them by. Brass fitting with fixtures for baggage were above our heads and small radiators were at the ends of each car for the winter traveler. Bubbler's filled with icy water were also fixtures in the vestibules of the train and ash trays in the arms of the seats for the smokers. How exciting to be a traveler, I was on my way to my grandmothers house all on my own. I never read or said much while traveling but just took in the scenic views with sun and shadow flickering past through the trees. A seldom word is spoken by me even to this day as I travel, I like to take in the sights and reflect upon silly notions and wonders in my head.
If you have ever had this experience of the Sydney to Newcastle flyer you also would remember that the Railways would give out free ice creams for those holding tickets, served in small round tubs with a wooden paddle to eat it with wrapped in cellophane, Peter's ice cream from memory. What a treat it was and one I had come to look forward to with all my travels backwards and forwards to Newcastle.
As the years passed and I grew a little older and I would think back about these frequent journeys, like the time we all had to alight the train at Gosford station! There seemed to be quite a disturbance going on by all the railway guards and station master with detectives and dogs being brought in. Down on the tracks and under the train they went, luggage was rummaged through all the while we stood at one end of the short platform. A bomb hoax was then explained to us all but nothing ever found. I thought to myself if the bomb had gone off we would have all been killed anyway as the train was right next us and we were not that far from it.
The times have changed now from those diesel engines and the Indian red and brown matchbox cars to the silver and steel, double decker cars now with electric run engines. The last time I caught the Flyer was when I was 13 years of age, this time it was a one way ticket July 9th 1976. I know this date well as it was the final journey I ever took upon the Flyer which reunited me with my mother, a dream dreamt of often, but in reality it was everything short of what I had conjured up in my mind. I left my sister and grandmother at Broad meadows station, Newcastle one Friday afternoon. I had left on bad terms, terms which have never really been resolved or talked about to this day. Money and theft were the issues and my sister and I were the guilty parties although I feel I got the blame for the most of it.
I had arrived in Sydney in the dark winter and it was cold. I carried my luggage across several platforms with a scarce number of people about and then had to make my way to the suburbs by train. It was a lonely ride with no one to meet me, the first of many lonely paths and journeys in my life. I new where to go as I had been to this place before, Petersham in Sydney's inner west quite close to the city itself full of new Australians and a whole different culture of people. I got out of the train at Petersham station that night, after trying to peer through the darkness with my hands cupped around my eyes pushed up against the window of the train as I made my way to the station but could see nothing. I got out and it was very dark and a large staircase stood in front of me. One light reflected down onto the platform and stairs. An overpass slightly lit led me onto the street which then took me upon a 3 kilometer walk to mums place. An old brick two storey house directly under Sydney's flight path to the airport, which had been converted into 4 flats, with an old copper as a laundry tub in the backyard with water and gas pipes running along the outside brick work. I struggled with my bags and fought off the chill in the air, alone and a little frightened I made it to her one bedroom flat where she lived and which would now become mine for a short while. I traipsed up the stairs and in through the unlocked door. It was dark with no lights on. I heard some noise coming from another room and saw the flickering of TV lights so I made my way down the corridor to it and there was my mother! she laid in her warm bed watching TV, a new colour set which she had just bought as these sets had only been released a year or so earlier. Her opening words were "Oh you made it and why did you do it? (referring to the stealing). I didn't know how to answer her or what to make of her just laying there watching TV, never bothering get up or to come meet me at the station but instead allowing me to travel all that way at night on my own.
Well this was the first of many unanswered questions and frequent disappointments throughout my life with her.
Nevertheless the journey's upon the Sydney to Newcastle flyer were events that ushered me into many of life's destinations, some well traveled, some not so well traveled. I wonder where in life did those past journeys take others? To happiness or to devastation, to regret or to nowhere?
Regardless wherever the destination I will never forget the anticipation and the excitement of my travels aboard the Flyer.

Rinaldo