The Night Mail - 2014 Style

A Virgin "Super Voyager", although the poem could describe a journey on just about any modern UK train. The reference to a "pan" (short for pantograph) in the first verse is to the fact that despite spending most of their working lives running under an overhead electric supply, these are purely diesel-powered trains.

Those of you who remember Auden's poem "This is the Night Mail", written for the film "Night Mail" in 1936, might be interested in this modern parody, recently sent to me and written by someone who I only know as "Trailer Second"

This is the Voyager crossing the Border

Standing room only, unless you pre-order

Seating for the rich, corridors for the poor

The shop has sold out, the buffet no more

Revving up Beattock, claiming to be green

The wires above her, no pan to be seen

Birds turn their heads, as she approaches

Stare from the bushes, at her paltry 5 coaches

Cars in the fast lane can’t keep pace

Have comfortable seats and a lot more grace

Thro’ heather and weather but not fallen leaves

With approval ratings that no-one believes

Shoveling carbon over her shoulder

Nox, particulates, benzene, sulphur

Her weight fatigues the railway line

She’s ten minutes late but that’s on time

In the farm she passes no one wakes

All long gone to euro milk lakes

Dawn freshens but the toilet’s full

Snarling toward the urban sprawl

Scotland, independent nation

Soon an end to this vibration

Past rough estates and fast food chains

Dodging the stones from those with no brains

Call centres, offices, low cost homes

Tattooed teenagers with tweeting phones

Once steel and coal and engineering

Graffiti, flats and multi screening

Trainspotting here is not what it seems

But fuels the crime to pay for dreams

In the dark glens beside pale green sea lochs

Men read their e-mails. . . .

And for those who prefer the original - here it is