Daily Photo – Train at Flagstaff Station in Melbourne
I set out in the morning with what felt like a very clear plan, tested and approved by someone far more organised than me. Walk to Newmarket Railway Station, catch the City Loop to Flagstaff Station, change trains, continue through to Southern Cross Railway Station. From there, board the train to Yarragon. Straightforward enough on the App.
Somewhere along the way, things began to loosen slightly.
At Flagstaff, the trains moved with a kind of quiet efficiency that suggested everything was working exactly as it should. There’s a certain confidence to a train arriving on time, doors opening in precisely the right place, people stepping on and off without hesitation. I, on the other hand, hovered just far enough back to suggest I was observing rather than participating, quietly double-checking that I was still following the right version of the plan.
By the time I reached Southern Cross, the plan had unravelled just enough to become interesting. Power lines had been damaged somewhere further along the line, and the train to Yarragon had been quietly replaced with a coach departing from bay 54. There was something mildly disappointing about it, though no one seemed particularly surprised. It had the feel of a well-practised disruption, as if this sort of thing happened often enough that it barely registered.
The coach made its way out to Pakenham, where we were funnelled back onto a train that carried on as if nothing had happened. No announcements, no grand explanation, just a seamless return to the original script.
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