Destination Birthgrove
By Gerald Ainger/Cobb Wed 8th Feb 2012The train roared through the tunnel
No smoke no steam and also no funnel
There were laughs joined with screams
Bridges looming across rivers and streams
The countryside rolled by slowly
Hills and dales standing so very lonely
Cobbled stone station drew aside our electro-mobile
Passengers oozed out in country style
This was the station where I departed
Two hours later I was back to where I started
Four sixteen to Birthgrove shunted in
Old carriages dusty, dark and grim
Speeding along at sixty miles per hour
Screaming past the famous Queens Bower
This was it’s most popular name
Although many were mistaken for the same
Shunting slowly the train always did try
Then the sky darkened and started to cry
Although not moving very fast
My destination was here at last
(on a train journey to Weymouth July1968 )
Restawyle 
Great entry my friend
Thank you jake,,
As they say, what matters is that we arrive to our destination safe and better than ever. The poem has so much to offer…not just the story of the the means of getting to where we need to go but how it happened. Kind of like life…it’s not always fast and thrilling as we want to be but what matters is we get to that place we always dream of going. Totally cool my friend. Best wishes!
It is very hard to understand, back in the days of steam, and me being a long haired guitar playing hippy when I wrote this, and now computers and manage to assemble poetry book. But never in my dreams did I expect other people to like them, So a big Thank you..
hello!
I’m curious if you wrote this poem in 1968 or if you wrote it more recently as you thought about that day in 1968?
I wrote it in 1968, it has been amended a few times. But it is in my book of poems and started putting them onto my site. It does bring back the memory of the era.. it is really unbelievable that people like my poems. i also write lyrics, which appear.. thank you so much.
Great poem, it reads with a train rhythm if you know what I mean.
Thank you for your visit and words, and it really surprising how people see different meanings, it is unbelievable for me.
Great sense of movement.
Wouldn’t that ‘Screaming pass’ line be safer as ‘Screaming past’? Or it would need a comma to give ‘Screaming, pass …’ if that’s what you meant.
thanks and yes you are right, will amend, one can get edit blindness
Beautiful poem. Your words alone a trasport to a different time, a different place,
Reminds me very much of a recent, different kind of “Bus” ride I was on with a friend.
The country side rolling by.
A sign of a great writer when he can inspire instant recall of a time, a place, and maybe even a person with just words,
I so enjoyed this ~ BB
Thank you My Lady, you doing an exploration, love it thanks..;) train journey coming…
😉