Railway stations are places full of emotions.
They are locations for arrivals and departures, first meetings and final farewells.
That has been seen in sharp relief in two starkly contrasting sets of images this week.
On the positive side, the concourse at Birmingham New Street station was the scene of a wonderfully choreographed marriage proposal.
It was a true love train.
I can’t stop singing the lyrics by ‘The O’Jays’:
People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Start a love train, love train
By contrast there are the harrowing scenes at railway stations in Ukraine of families torn apart by war – women and children put safely on trains out of the country while the men stay to fight.
The hands on either side of the glass, the tears in the eyes, the faces at the windows, the last kisses before the train leaves. It’s raw emotion as the railways provide a route out of the warzone.
:: Poet laureate Simon Armitage has written a wonderful poem ‘Resistance’ about the war in Ukraine.
It includes the evocative lines:
The next scene smacks
of archive newsreel: platforms and trains
(never again, never again),
toddlers passed
over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed
in luggage racks.
That phrase “lifetimes stowed in luggage racks” sums up how trains are taking people and all their possessions away from their homes – hopefully to safety.