Commuter Diary 5 Warning: This column contains words like stra****, out****s, deliv******s, prior***** and syn******, which some readers may find offensive. At twilight, we creep back to our evening train. Pale and listless after a day in the towers of Melbourne, peering at important pieces of paper, many a Castlemaine Commuter takes narcotic comfort in […]
Training for Melbourne
Commuter Diary 4 Among Castlemaine’s veteran commuters there are hushed whispers of a train to Melbourne which is believed to depart Castlemaine at 5.28am. This is the Ghost Train, because within that witching hour, no human being can survive more than a few minutes. On the space-time continuum, the polar opposite to the Ghost Train […]
The Chosen Few, the Six-oh-Twos
Commuter Diary 3 One frozen morning, as the train sped through the badlands of Elphinstone, we at Commuter Diary were unable to slip into a dignified doze. We were sorely troubled at the possibility, however faint, that someone could try and alter the track geometry at Woodend. Were we on track? What were the points? […]
On track to the land of Nod, and meditations on track geometry
Commuter Diary 2 Exhausted before 7 am, our dogged commuters are dozing before Malmsbury. Almost to a person, the Castlemaine Commuter falls asleep in a style known as the Unilateral Implosion. It affects commuters with a window seat, and thus, all of our Castlemaine Commuters. Here, the drowsy commuter gently subsides against the window, like […]
Castlemaine commuters, we salute you
Commuter Diary Blog 1 On the Bendigo line, the train journey from Castlemaine in central Victoria to Melbourne, the state capital, takes about 90 minutes. A large number of commuters make the trip, every day of the working week. This blog tells some of the stories. “Morning,” utters our acquaintance, the word disappearing into a […]