AN IMPORTANT PASSENGER

Limited Edition from original artwork by Peter Barnfield
 
 

W84 AN IMPORTANT PASSENGER

Myrtle was an inconvenient station. If you were travelling from the Buntings to the port of Quill this presented no problem, but if you wished to visit the county town of Whiminster it meant changing trains. Since the two adjacent railway companies were barely on speaking terms, connections were usually timed to be as inconvenient as possible, making long waits in the depressingly spartan surroundings almost inevitable. First class passengers could sometimes enjoy the privilege of having their carriage shunted onto the other railway via the traverser in the foreground, although this contraption did not work very well in wet weather. It was not until the two railway companies finally merged that common sense prevailed and a connecting spur was built. The dreaded Desdemona Groynes, wife of one of the Buntings and Quill Rly. directors and the terror of all the staff, is making one of her periodic excursions. She does not travel lightly and one wonders just how the lady and her luggage are going to be fitted into the waiting train.