Tag: Railway

Freight Train Passing

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Freight Train Passing’

Looking down to Judge’s Bay from the tranquility of the rose garden , I am met with the clattering noise of a freight train .It’s on the main trunk line, laden with shipping containers, bound for god knows where.

If the peace is momentarily shattered, I am actually comforted by the rumble from the tracks beneath me and the brute ugliness of the containers and rusty carriages.

For it signifies “business as usual”.

For all the strictures of lockdown and pandemic-fueled economic recession, the passing train and its cargo tell me that normal activity is actually happening out there.

Good shit headed for people who will do good shit with it…

An All Seeing Eye

by Ebb Then Flood

20191005_071548 (3)Skylight, Edinburgh Waverley Station

The restored ceiling and glass work of the ticket hall at Edinburgh’s principal rail hub is a wonder, that escapes due attention as travellers scurry for their trains, or the exits.

If they do glance up, it is only as far as the electronic schedule boards announcing arrivals, departures and British Rail’s inevitable delays.

My own hurried phone photograph was an exposure fail, but it serves to emphasise the ceiling’s stunning design.

In silhouette, the dome appears as a great eye.

All seeing.

Omniscient.

I wonder how many sojourners have passed under the skylight’s gaze?

How much motion silently observed from above?

I didn’t have time to look up again, but am glad I did in that moment, before moving for the exit, eyes ahead.

 

On Arriving And Departing

by Ebb Then Flood

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Barcelona Estacio de Franco     October 2019

Numbered platforms, nameless people.

Coming and going as they please, or as they must.

For every departure, an arrival.

Many journeys.

From a short distance I observe those on the platforms coming and going.

I am a stranger here, but am a fellow journey maker, so there is a momentary affinity of sorts.

Even the sweeping ironwork of the grand station roof speaks of the lines and curves of travel.

There is wonderment in such a place, but always anticipation of the next destination.

For we must keep moving…

 

 

Criss Cross

by Ebb Then Flood

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Spectacular curving, criss-crossed ceiling at London’s King’s Cross Railway Station.

So elegant with its purplish backlighting, and just vast as a piece of design

Even I hadn’t been hanging around for the train north to Edinburgh, this would have dragged me in to admire it.

Lines crossing over and over again, like the passengers scurrying to their trains, heading to different destinations.

Indeed, the kinetic and life energy in the place is amazing – all those journeys, with their beginnings and endings ; those unknown (to each other) plans and dreams – in the one place at the same time, intersecting for the briefest moment and then arching out and beyond, perhaps never to cross over again.

And when you board the train, it’s a little simpler – you’re away again on your own trajectory and at least the tracks run parallel !