Your train is just arriving ma'am

Image: © Simon Johnston Taken: 10 Nov 2007

Platform 21 confuses more than Catch 22. I refer to the missed connections and most unusual happenings, ghost trains etc at the Waverley's furthest travel outpost. "Glad you got here, Ms Heller", he said clucking. "Your husband left you this envelope and asked if you would bring him home if he is still here but the lift is stuck between floors and you're not disabled but you cannot leave by the normal route so do you have a phone? Eighteen, I'd say, yes and goodnight to you. I would recommend the chicken tonight unless you went to Harvey Nicks. By the timbre of your bag I would say it sounds like you'll be eating with us. Will ma'am be wishing her normal seat by the window? Four by two over beside forty winks.... No ma'am. Yes, that's right. There are no trains tonight. Why we're all here for you. That looks like a heavy load. May I? What? Carry my bag? Why ma'am I think I'm already on Platform 22. I'll look for you yesterday. First floor: ladieswear, haberdashery and... other incomprehensibilities [to fade]" Here we have a complex focal issue. He was either looking at the woman or me. She was looking at him wondering why he was looking at her. The other guard was wholly uninterested in any of us. I could have been looking at all or any one of them. But I wasn't. I was the only one who saw the ghost train that night. The green bannisters and yellow hazard markings funnel you downstairs. The woman in the photo steals the eye immediately with her luminous bag but you'd be forgiven for then tripping over the anxious middleman and finding the preoccupied clockwatcher at the end of the diagonal triplet. Reorganised in Dec 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Waverley_railway_station Platforms 20/21 are known as platforms 9/8 http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/SME/html/NRE_EDB/plan.html www.networkrail.co.uk/Edinburgh-Waverley-station-map.pdf Sometime in 2009 stainless steel central divider handrails were fitted on the access stair http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1763761.

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