There's something about the railway

I'm on my way back to Norwich.
It's getting dark at Peterborough station
and a cargo train shuffles past
like an old lady in slippers.
Sometimes when I'm waiting on platforms
I think about my granddad, who worked on the trains
travellign up and down the country then always back to Teeside

and I never met him but he's always been really close.
When I was little sometimes my grandma would say
'Did I ever tell you about ...'

and talk about the sweetshop at the end of her road
or how excited she was the first time she used a toaster
and sometimes she'd tell me something about my granddad
that he wore the same hat every day for thirty years
that he always bought her socks for her birthday
that she never once heard him swear.
Sometimes she'd talk about how much he loved his job

'There's something about the railway' she'd say
and I always knew what she meant.
It's getting dark and cold at Peterborough station
and as the cargo train passes me
I start to count the carriages
like I've done ever since I was little
in the car at level crossings.

I've always been fascinated by the heaps of coal by the sides of the tracks
men in high viz jackets shovelling
and I like it when I see trainspotters on the bridge,
notebooks and bobble hats
the perfect vantage point.
There's something reassuring about the cargo train
that disappears over the Peterborough horizon
and I think about the locomotive rhythms of my grandma's stories

and wish I'd talked to her more.
There's something about the railway.
There's something about the crackle of old radio
the smell of a dusty book
the discoloration of the pages.