The Train from Sydney to Newcastle. A Personal Account of Hell on Earth.

Yesterday evening I planned to ignore the weather warnings and go and see Laura up in Newcastle. I arrived at Central station, just missing the 5:45 direct train, and read the various travel delay notices weighing up whether I should get on a train or not. Figuring what the heck, since I had no plans for the evening anyway and could do with an adventure too I got on the train leaving from platform 14 altered to platform 5 and running late. A sign of things to come.
At about the same time Laura was waiting for a bus from Muswellbrook to Newcastle, although when it finally arrived it went in the wrong direction so it could approach Newcastle on a road that wasn’t flooded.

Here’s the basic facts:

• I made it as far as Morrisset before being told I should turn round and go back to Sydney as Newcastle is completely flooded.
• The entire journey involved 5 trains and 5 buses in 8.5 hours, with my final drop off point by the last bus I was on ultimately being a 2 minute walk from where I got on the first train. The list of methods of transportation goes: train, train, long wait, bus, train, bus, train, bus, long wait, train, bus, long wait, bus, bus.
• Starving hungry, I put my last coin into a vending machine at Gosford station at 11:30pm, to have it swallow my money and not give me anything. This was not a pleasant evening.
• Laura didn’t make it to Newcastle, instead the bus turned round and took her back to Muswellbrook. On the bright side she didn’t have to change transportation once.
• ‘This is a train line not a bloody airline,’ said the man working at the station at Wyong when I asked if they were going to help people find accommodation after he told me they won’t take me to Newcastle and I can’t get back to Sydney either. I hope he’s still standing in the rain as I write this.
• I was seriously weighing up advice I was given by another passenger to sleep on the train for the night and work things out from wherever I woke up in the morning.
• Although a lot of the staff in the stations were doing the best they could, the remainder were arse holes and it was pretty much impossible to find out what was going on, and when I could find out what was going on, what was going on was not going to help me at all.
• The NSW government declared the storms a natural disaster, but of course to most people stuck in the rain it seemed like more of a personal one.

Arriving home wet, tired and hungry at 2:30am this morning; I can say I’ve had better evenings, although most of which are far less memorable. I guess there isn’t an easy way to prove Marcel Proust was right all along.