I
“The 16:04 ScotRail service to Edinburgh Waverley will be departing from Platform Five. Please proceed to Platform Five for the 16:04 ScotRail service to Edinburgh Waverley.”
I put the bag of McCoy’s salt and vinegar wavy crisps in my jacket’s bottom left pocket, then pull out my Smartcard from my upper right. I beep the card to go through the gates. The train has five AE carriages and puller and pusher Class 43 locomotives. No time to finish the crisps because the train is next to the platform, and Goddamnit, I want a good seat. There’s no other direct ScotRail train to Edinburgh from Aberdeen until 19:14, and I don’t want to wait with the seagulls and pigeons until then.
I walk down to Coach B, trying to get some privacy. Initially, I sit down in the first four-seat table area I see, near The Big Toilet. Then, on second thought, I go down to the furthest table and get a seat with only one seat reservation, white like a goose feather sticking out. Not long after, a gran wearing enough perfume to remind me of a florist sits in the taken seat. Soon after that, an older man in his fifties comes on board and sits across the aisle from me, with a fluffy brown poodle.
“Sorry,” I told the gran, feng-shui-ing my things, “just need a bit.” I plug my laptop charger into the socket. Upside Down for Chunky Chargers. Then, I plug the laptop charger into the laptop. I still get a kick out of my current laptop, an MSI Commercial 14”. It even has a badge insert slot, like the Dell I had at the nuclear submarine shipyard. Do your part, and for fuck’s sake, don’t email nuclear secrets.
I hook up my wireless charger to the laptop, turn on my phone hotspot because ScotRail Wi-Fi is a lie, and log in. I squeeze my Coke and Smartcard between the laptop and the wall socket. The staff sometimes check tickets twice, so I leave the Smartcard out instead of putting it back in my wallet.
“Welcome tae the ScotRail 16:04 service tae Edinburgh Waverley, we’ll be departin’ shortly. Please secure all luggage that cannae fit under your seat in th’ overhead luggage rack. Smokin’ an’ vapin’ isnae allowed on this service.”
“If you see something that doesn’t look right, text the British Transport Police at Six-One-Zero-One-Six. We’ll sort it: See it. Say it. Sorted.”
At least the Transport Police overhead this time’s Scottish, not English. English overhead voices grate on me. It feels like Bunker Hill or Bannockburn were for nothing. “Put the punnet of raspberries on the correct side, now, villein! Pay!”
II
We start moving. I lose myself in my work. A 2,000–3,000–word story, ok, split the difference, 2,500, divided into five parts, all logical. Single, exterior drama/predicament or central sustained action? Ok, no worries there. Let the psychological and emotional resonances arise naturally from the—
“Why have we stopped moving?” I hear. I stare out the window into the blue water for a moment. The train’s not moving. To my right, is a gaping chasm of greenery, moss, and jagged rock that opens like a pair of parted legs into the North Sea. What a beautiful landscape. Yet, here I am, on a stuck fucking train. I digress.
The train is packed full. The only seats I see not occupied are, thankfully, the one to my left, and the one to the gran’s left. Every other seat is either occupied by a passenger or seat reservation. We haven’t even stopped at Portlethen.
I return to organizing my draft. Part one is obvious, but then, I need—
Shit, still nowhere. Internet lagging. Let me check Instagram, that won’t take up much effort while I sit here in stalled boredom. Malt whisky, cigars, Sartre-esque literary magazines, and my boyfriend sends me a meme about the bear festival coming up next month, back in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Not literal bears, but jolly, gay, hirsute men in speedos. I’ll let your imagination figure out the rest.
The locomotive engines cut out. I text my boyfriend:
Train loco’s lost power lmao
RESTART! RESTART!
Like the fucking locomotive has a giant F5 button on it. They do, actually, because I’ve been in multiple stuck train incidents on both sides of “The Pond” and that’s what the crews do. Shut the loco off, turn it back on, see what happens.
My boyfriend texts back:
Lmao
I just got out of class yay
FREEDOM
No, he isn’t doing a William Wallace bit. He just thinks clothes are a fabric prison.
I look out the window again. I see three people walking amid the gorse. They must be thinking, “what a bunch o’ dafties, stuck on yon train, aye.” Here I sit, writing, being watched by the locals out walking their dogs. I feel like a Roman general stuck in the mud because my ox cart lost a wheel, while the Picts laugh at me. The poodle gags. I check the floor. Did it vomit? Nope. One-one, no dog barf, but still stuck.
“As ye’ve likely noticed, we’re stuck on the tracks at this moment. The engineer says we’ve lost power. We’re tryin’ tae get the engine goin’ again. Please bear with us, ta.”
III
I notice on Instagram that the university’s business college is publishing a geopolitical and economics journal. I peruse the contents. All undergrads. But they’re looking for writers and editors. Why not volunteer? I start drafting an email. Not like I’m busy, still with our collective thumbs up our combined asses.
Because I’m sitting in Coach B, behind First Class in A, I notice the conductor running back and forth between the coaches and the locomotive. The staff aren’t panicked. Just . . . flustered. I continue drafting my email.
“Ya had to jinx us, aye?” I hear another passenger complain to a friend.
I check the finished email draft over. Looks good? Yup. Do I care that much? Nope. They’ll likely say no. This is likely for undergrads, by undergrads, not wanting creative writing people introducing concepts like, “Hey, maybe lose the jargon?” I say “Orwellian” in the email, so they’ll probably ignore it. C’est la vie, YOLO.
I should text my friends, they’ll find this funny. I send a few messages. Caol Ila posted a picture on Instagram of a dram in a Glencairn glass. How… creative. Malt in a glass. Oh boy, Diageo Marketing Prize of Innovation 2025.
“Please hold on, folks, these trains are fifty years old. Happens on occasion.”
My brain switches to the song We Love You Mrs Thatcher sung by Alan Dean. The song, as you can imagine, is not positive. My mind then flashes to the history of ScotRail. Part of British Rail before Privatisation in 1997 under John Major. Just over one month before Major was ousted: privatized on 31 March, booted on 2 May. Still though, I can blame Thatcher for me sitting next to a gaping chasm somewhere in Aberdeenshire, because the Class 43s were built in her premiership.
The locomotive engines restart. The train moves backwards for a bit. Not long, only a couple of seconds. I watch the sea. So, we can move, just not southward. I remember, thankfully, that my ticket wasn’t beeped. We haven’t even made it to Portlethen.
I lean back in my seat in contemplation. To my annoyance, sitting here interrupts my workflow. My mind wanders, and I listen to the intrusive thoughts. I should start figuring out residencies or fellowships for after my degree. But not now, because the internet’s hosed. Like this train. I wonder how Lenin felt in The Sealed Train from Switzerland to Russia. There’s a joke about the USSR with all its different leaders on a train that stops on the rails. Each tries to solve the problem in their own way:
Lenin: Collectivize the train workers and make them fix the train.
Stalin: Shoot the workers until the train moves.
Khruschev: Take the rails from behind the train and put them in front.
Brezhnev: Shut the blinds and pretend you’re moving.
Gorbachev: Say the country was going the wrong way, regardless.
Yeltsin: Drive the train off the rails into a ditch.
Thankfully, the ScotRail employees aren’t collectivizing us into labor gangs or telling us “Everything is fine” yet. Yet.
My mind is tired. I want a cigar when I get home. Probably the Quai d’Orsay No. 52. I stare out the window and see an oil tanker sailing towards Aberdeen. Maybe I should write a story about Fidel Castro. How many ways are there to kill Castro? 638. Probably room for a story in there. Or maybe a cigar. I consider a plot of an American oil rig consultant for Shell visiting Scotland and trying a Cohiba. He comes to Edinburgh in 2010, buys one for £12.50, and returns in 2023 to find the same cigar is £70.00 because of COVID, hurricanes, and labor shortages. Like all good Americans, he complains, but pays regardless. What an absurd concept, a socialist hermit country like Cuba selling cigars to rich Americans who fly abroad just to have a smoke.
IV
“Attention passengers, just a quick update. The front locomotive’s goosed, but as ye’ll have noticed, the rear one’s still workin’. We’re goin’ tae pull the train back tae Aberdeen, an’ I’ll update ye again once we’re nearer the station. This ScotRail service tae Edinburgh Waverley is cancelled.”
I text my boyfriend:
Train’s cancelled lolz
Oooooofs
They’re going to pull us back into Aberdeen
What will you do now?
Keep writing my damned story and sit in my chair lmao
Didn’t know that was a possibility😂
The engine literally shit the bed lol
Ermagurd
I finally made it home
😂 so assuming they’d swap you to a different train?
They will not
They never beeped my ticket lol
Indeed, by now, the conductor had announced:
“There’s a 17:09 service tae Dundee. Please take that service—”
A younger woman spoke for a moment, but the gran sitting diagonally across from me loudly shushed her into silence.
“—tae Dundee. For services past Dundee, ye’ll need tae connect in Dundee on the 18:37 service tae Edinburgh Waverley. If you require a refund . . .”
Fuck that shit, I think to myself. Last thing I want is to have to get on another train, then connect, all while I’m trying to get work done. No, I think, I’ll find another train and get a seat with a degree of privacy.
I look up from my laptop. I see the enormous UFO-shaped silver Aberdeen incinerator building. We’ll be getting off the dead train soon. I pack up my things once the announcements end, because like the gran, I have a hard time hearing the conductor.
Aberdeen station heaves into view. I stand up and clip my backpack snaps. People are already queued up to get off the train. I look over onto the platform where the Dundee train is. Three fucking coaches. They’re going to try to stuff five coaches of people from a cancelled train onto a smaller train, on top of the people who were going to get on the Dundee train anyway. No, not doing that. I want peace and quiet to write.
Most of the crowd from the dead, cancelled train makes a neat, tight, straight/right/right turn to the smaller train to Dundee. The platform is full of people. I do not want to try to get work done on a packed, three-coach train, pack my stuff up again, hoof it onto another train, and then try to get more work done after Dundee. I walk over to one of the station staff, and ask:
“Excuse me, can I buy an LNER ticket from that kiosk?” There’s no other ScotRail train directly to Edinburgh until around 19:00 or 20:00, but there’s an 18:18 LNER to Leeds.
“Naw, you’ll need tae go to the ticket office,” he explains. He opens the gate for me. I nod and go through. I walk into the ticket office.
“Hello, can I buy LNER tickets?”
“Sure, what dae ye need?”
“First class ticket on the 18:18 train to Leeds, please, to Edinburgh.”
“What seat d’ye want?”
“Facing the, uh…”
“Way yer goin’?”
“Right, ha-ha. Window seat, at a table.”
“Ok so. One way?”
I nod in reply.
“That’ll be… £40,” which amazes even him.
Not bad, I think. I nod and pay. I walk around the Union Square shopping centre for a bit. We need toothpaste at home, so I buy two tubes of Colgate, plus one of Euthymol to try. I walk back to the train timetable screen and wait.
V
I make a couple of phone calls in the meantime. One is to Lighthouse Books about volunteering for the Radical Book Fair. The other is to my boyfriend:
“I’ll be arriving at around, uh, 21:00 at Waverley,” I explain.
“Do you want me to meet you at the station? That way we can get KFC.”
“Sounds like someone wants KFC,” I joke.
“I mean… what do we have in the fridge for dinner?”
“Pigeon; whole bird, so roasting.”
“Ew, no, not tonight, I don’t want to cook.”
Not long after, the 18:18 LNER to Leeds is announced as being at Platform Five, same platform as before. The LNER train, however, is massive. I’m in Coach L out of A-M. The train is much newer, a Hitachi Azuma set. I find my seat and set to work. The staff asks if I want drinks four times on the trip, not that I’m complaining, and I order a blended Scotch with soda first then a black coffee and brownie second. Free Scotch and soda and coffee for a £40 ticket is not a bad deal. I even could have gotten food, but no need, considering I’ll be hammering on my keyboard and getting KFC later.
What an absurd way to end the day. This is the perfect story. Better than the cigar idea.
“CCTV is in operation on this service for your safety and security.”