the howie

Many years ago I organised a fun evening of transport fun. It was when Cityrail decided that their service was soo bad they had fair free day.

So some friends and I split in to two teams and tried to complete a bunch of silly challenges and tasks. I don’t remember heaps about the night, and talking to Tom he doesn’t remember much either. But we are sure it was fun. If no memorable.

Then in my time at a previous employer I organised 2 or 3 full day transport challenges. These days where for youth coming from different parts of Sydney. I never got to be a participant but I loved running them and setting the challenges etc. The youth and their leaders siad they where some of the best youth days the organisation had put on. I was pretty chuffed.

So many many years later and being inspired by the last few days of the March Photo Scav Hunt I decided it was time to run one again.

So I am.

Check it.

I may have found heaven.

Rail Cruising

Today I finally got my Christmas present from Jenny.

A childless steam train adventure for two down to Austinmer!!!

We headed to Central and arrived about 20mins before the steam train was due to leave, allowing us to stand near all the old (rather large) men taking photos of the engine arriving. But the train ended up leaving 45 minutes late, not because it is old technology, but because it got stuck behind a cityrail train.

The plan was to get Gozleme from the little shop at Austinmer beach, but on arrival we found the shop had gone and been replaced by a normal takeaway. Luckily they had good burgers otherwise it would have been the worst Christmas present ever!!!!!

It was a super day. I love steam trains.

Yes it’s Sunday again so that means another story about a father son adventure using the $2.50 family funday ticket.

Oscar loves planes, he gets super excited whenever they fly over our house or of he sees them when we are out walking. So I thought I would take him to the airport to watch some planes up close. Just like last week It was all planned out thanks to my trust iPhone.

So with lunch packed and pram folded Jenny drove me and the O man to the station.

We trained it to Central on an express and Oscar spent the trip looking out the window and staring at fellow passengers. Close-ish to Central he tensed up a bit and began making a deep groaning noise, Thanks to my great parenting skills i know that this noise means one thing and one thing only. He is pushing out poo. He groaned for a while and then as fellow passengers quietly moved away to other seats it was quite apparent that his groaning was successful.

The smell was pretty bad, so I assumed it was a biggie!

I knew there was a 12 minute gap between when our train arrived at Central and when the Airport one leaves, so  I had 12 minutes to find a baby change room, change him and get to the airport platform. It’s a tight schedule as we need to be home for his 2pm nap. So putting the stink bag back in the pram and packing up the various segments of vegemite sandwich sprayed across the seat we dashed for the ticket barriers. Eventually the man near the gate opened it for us and we headed for the baby change room / disabled toilet.

Just before we got off the train I had a bit of a peak down Oscars pants and could see that the peanut-butt-er was very close to escaping out the sides of his nappy. We went into the change room and it was disgusting, there was blood smeared all over the toilet seat, the change table was dirty and the floor was covered in toilet paper. But I had no option I needed to change him, It was at this moment I also realised I didn’t have any of the alcoholic hand gel stuff and that this was one time that some antibacterial assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I got his little change mat out from under the pram and laid him on it on the change table. The change mat also has pockets where we keep spare nappies, creams and wipes. THERE WAS ONLY 2 WIPES!!!!!!And when I opened up the nappy of doom it was obvious 2 wipes was not going to help me much. Meanwhile Oscar began crying and the smell and image of his mud pie was making me nauseous and I began gagging a little.

I did what I could with the 2 wipes, then had to think quick what to do next. Toilet paper and water was my thought. But the toilet paper and sink where over the other side of the room, If I go over there whats to stop Oscar from painting the walls or rolling off the change table. There was a sign on the change table that said ‘Always use the safety strap, you guessed it, the safety strap was missing.

As quick as i could i ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a clump of toilet paper, we it by turning on the tap with my foot and dashed back to Oscar who was still crying but luckily not painting or rolling.

The toilet paper idea didn’t go according to plan, it was cheap government issue one ply that kind of disintegrated when it was mixed with water and fecal matter.

so a few more dashed and clumps i got him clean enough to put on a nice fresh new nappy.

Then it was back into the pram (still crying) so i could pack everything up and wash my hands.

All that in a 12 minute window???? You bet, we got to the platform as the train was about to close it’s doors!

Now because the Airport rail line is a private venture they have ridiculous prices for using their stations and access is not covered in the $2.50 funday ticket, I knew this well as Jenny and I when we need to go to the airport often just get the train to Mascot instead of the airport as it’s an easy walk to the airport and you save a lot of money. It’s only one station before the domestic station. At the airport the station access fee is $18 if you want to go out and back in again, at mascot it’s $4.20.

So we got off at Mascot and walked to the airport, Oscar had cheered up a bit at this stage but still not super happy.

walking with a pram took a little longer than expected, I guess you can be much more careless when dragging a suitcase. During the walk Oscar did some more groaning which in our wipe-less situation was not a good sound. I remembered that in the virgin terminal there is a chemist under the escalators so that was our first priority.

Eventually we got to the airport and lined up to go through security so we could go to the chemist then find a good window to look at planes.

I picked Oscar up and he was happy then, but I had to hold him, fold up the pram, empty my pockets and try not to look suspicious as i was sweating a lot, and sweating is not something you want to be doing when going through a security checkpoint.

The security guards where trying to make the pram fit through the x-ray machine. They worked it out and I walked through the metal detector, it beeped. In my sweating state this drew the attention of all the security on duty. I had just forgotten to take my belt off.

We got through, I unfolded the pram, put my belt on and headed for the lift, strangely 3 security guards joined us in the lift.  Turns out they where just off to the foodcourt.

In the chemist I got some wipes and antibacterial stuff.

Due to the longer than anticipated walk, long lines at security and an unscheduled chemist stop we only had about 5 minutes of plane watching time before needing to hot foot it back to Mascot. But Oscar had been such a good boy and we both had post cityrail facilities trauma that I decided to spend a bit longer watching planes and just get the train back from the airport.

Oscar loved all the planes, he was super happy and that made me happy.

After about 10 mins of watching planes we headed for the airport station.  We got in the lift to head down to the station concourse, just as the dorrs where closing an arm swung through the door and in came a lady holding her stomach with vomit on the front of her shirt. It felt like the longest lift ride in the world, my stomach doesn’t do well with that smell.

At the station I didn’t have enough money for the station access fee so had to take some money out from the ATM, then found that you cant buy the station access from the ticket machines so had to line up at the window, this lining up meant we missed the train which meant no more being home by 2.

It had been a traumatic adventure so I treated myself to an overpriced airport vending machine coke, it was soo good.

We ended up getting home at 2:20pm so not too bad, and this week instead of writing a blog post i had a nap.

I hope next Sundays adventure is not so crazy.

The moral to this weeks story is, Don’t go to the airport without a flight booking, it hurts too much looking at the planes but not going on one.

I discovered today 2 things that are a sign the world is about to end.

1.  Thomas the tank engine is now a freaking cartoon not model trains!
2. Thomas is dubbed with an American narrator in the USA

that sucks!!!!!!!!!

 As I have told you before, if you have a child with you It’s only $2.50 for train, bus and ferry fun on a Sunday.

And being a bit of a train / transport nerd I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go on an adventure on the launch day of the new ticketing system.  So Oscar and I went on adventure.

Our walk to the train station was interrupted by a parade that almost meant we missed out train!!  I was going to yell abuse but they where all old so probably wouldn’t hear me.

We made a dash in between 2 scout troops and just made our train.

The train makes you pull strange faces apparently

sometimes just sitting on a train is boring so you have to spice it up by standing in your pram and bouncing up and down.

Eventually we made it to Meadowbank where we walked down to the ferry.

On the way to Meadowbank in between giving Oscar his lunch and ensuring his pram surfing didn’t cause bruising I looked up a route on my Iphone and timed it down to a T. We could get a ferry to the city then a train to Central before the express back home. arriving home just before the scheduled nap time.

What was I doing?????? My stupid stupid brain, I forgot to factor in the unreliability of Sydney transport and the fact that nothing runs on time.

The ferry was late, this was going to ruin everything!!!

Not that Oscar would notice, at one point I thought he was going to explode with excitement, there was a boat going past, a train on the bridge and a helicopter flying above!

Eventually the ferry arrived, and boy oh boy was it packed! I ended up having to hold Oscar over his pram with people squished around us on all sides all the way to the city.

I was a good Daddy and covered the O man in sun cream when we got on the ferry. which really is a good thing because later in the voyage the suncream tube decided to jump ship and is now floating in Sydney Harbour somewhere.

Becasue the ferry was so packed and more and more people got on at each wharf it was getting later and later. All hope of making out train was gone, then the ferry decided to make a swing into darling harbour so I decided to get off there and walk fast up to Wynyard. Not Town Hall because the ferry stopped a bit further north than the aquarium.

We got off the ferry pretty quick and made a dash for the new bridge over the expressway. There was a lot of steps! I picked up the pram and carried it up the first flight, then paused for some lung refilling and to remove the litres of sweat trapped under my sunglasses.

It was after making it to the top of the stairs that I noticed the lift.

eventually we made it to Wynyard.

There was a few minutes until the next train so I got out Oscar’s water bottle to give him a drink. But for some reason the water bottle was less than half full??? It was full when I put it in my bag!

So i put my hand in the bag and felt around, it was all a bit damp, I swore internally so I didn’t look like a bad father.

I opened the bottom section of the bag where my DSLR and Lens’s and other camera stuff are, they seemed fine so I was a bit relieved. I put my bag in the pram and carried Oscar on to the train.

2 Stations from home I took my bag out of the pram to put the O man in it. The pram was soaked!!

This time my swearing was not so internal!

I quickly took out the camera and lens’s and flash to find them all a bit damp and the inside of the bottom pocket was drenched!!!

Good thing I have one of those little moisture absorber things in the bottom of the bag!!

Once home I took out all the pockets and bits and pieces and it’s all outside drying now.

The moral to this story is, Don’t try to document your Sunday adventure as soon as you get home as by the time you have posted it the baby will be awake again and that means no nap for you!!!!

$%&@

Back in 2002 there was a man who became a hero of mine, well not a real hero as I couldn’t remember his name and had to sms Jem to remind me. Maybe more of a legend.

His name is Wallace Weaving (thanks Jem) and he is an old man that decided to take advantage of his $2.50 pensioner train ticket and travel the entire cityrail network in a day. you can read about him here.

I can’t wait until i’m 65 years old and then I can try and beat his record, it will be tough as there is a long wait until i’m 65. By then the cityrail network will have probably fallen apart, I say probably I mean defiantly.

Sure i could do it now but it would cost a fortune, the daytripper ticket designed to let you travel as much as you want in a day has boundaries that are well inside the extremities of the cityrail network so you would have to purchase separate tickets to travel out on each limb of the network.

So it’s not going to happen…….

…. Or is it?

Today I decided to take Oscar on a train adventure, just s short one but enough to fill in 2 hours so Jenny could rest a bit.

I went up to the ticket machine not really knowing where to go, but then read that the machine was out of order so i had to go to the window.

When i got to the window with Oscar in his pram the man in the window said “are you traveling with a child’. I said “yes” then he said “that’s $2.50 for you to travel all day on trains, buses and ferries, if you have a child it’s $2.50 every Sunday for unlimited travel”

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

They call it ‘Sunday funday’ stuff that! I’m calling it Sunday Bloody Awesome Sunday!

yes it does need the ugly green highlight.

So my mission is set, I figure every odd Sunday i should get me and Oscar into train training, or ‘training’ as i like to call it. We will train for the big one, then one day we will do it. And all for $2.50. It’s gonna be the best day ever.

Today we just went to Macquarie Uni station and back again.

Oscar’s favorite part of the trip was putting his index fingers in the holes in the window.

Today we went on a steam train as part of the great heritage rail weekend at Central.

It was super fun, I love steam trains. I love the smell and rattling of the carriages, the soot in your eye the heat of the engine and of course the “tooooot toooooot”.

And what made it even more super was that it was Oscar’s first steam train trip and he liked it.

In fact at central it was hard to get a photo of him looking at the camera because he was always twisting around just staring at the steam engines. That’s my boy!

All of us, from the back left. The Howie, The Wife,

front left, The one who kisses boys, The baby and then The one who kisses a girl.

A good day out. Next steam train hopefully the zig zag.

I went in to the office late this afternoon to do some printing, get my laptop and grab some flyers.

I got back to Central just in time to get the 5pm express home. I got a seat next to a business man and near some load girls whoe had just been to NZ on a skiing trip.

The train chugged along like normal, then suddenly there was a loud bang and a smash. The window in front of mine was hit with a big rock, it shattered the ourside pane of glass and broke a hole in the second one. There was some shouting and a few swear words. It was pretty crazy, a bit more force and the lady in front of me would have a different shaped head right now.

After letting out a few more naughty words she called the cops on her mobile.

It was as we where going past the brickpit skate park. But the Lady didnt tell the cops that.

When the train pulled in to Hornsby I went and found a cityrail worker, he was standing there with his flag, I told him what happened and he asked which carriage, So I pointed at the window. He then said “ok” and put his flag up so the train could leave, he wasn’t the slightest bit interested. I would have thought a rock smashing a window would be a serious deal.

I then decided to call the cops myself and tell them that i was on the train and that the rock was thrown from the skate park.

that is all.

My wallet is dying to death.

So yesterday afternoon I went to Macquarie Centre to go to the Oxfam shop to get a new wallet. they have this fun wallet made fomr plastic bags collected on the streets of Delhi. Now I could have just ordered the wallet online and it would have turned up in the mail. But we all know the real reason I didn’t order it online.

The real reason is that I love trains and the new Epping to Chatswood rail link is still providing me with much enjoyment.  I know it’s nerdy to like trains, but there is nothing i can do about it. At the moment it’s just enjoyment. But the problem is that as i age more and find myself wearing socks and sandals and a big floopy hat, I’ll probably be a nerdy trainspotter you know the strange old men who stand on rail bridges taking photo’s of diesel loccomotives and if you accidently start a conversation with them they star quoting model numbers,  and engine serial numbers and talk to you about guages and loops.

So please don’t let me be a trainspotter, and if you do start seeing me cross the tracks to the dark side please remind me to stand behind the yellow line.

I love steam trains, oh i love steam trains.

Here is my new wallet.

Today was Oscar day!

While the oscars where underway in LA, our little Oscar went on his first train adventure. We went to Epping to go on the new train to Chatswood. So we Caught an express from Hornsby to Epping, then went down towards the earth;s core to the nice new station that smelt like dust. And sitting in the platform was an Oscar train. They are using Oscar trains at the moment in the tunnel. some people think it’s a millenium train but Oscar’s are the new inter-city version of the millenuim, they are nice.

On the Express

Heading down to the new platforms, they are a long way down.

Two happy train nerds

Oscar and his traveling milk bar.

Oscar looking out an Oscar dreaming of one day winning an Oscar

It can be quite tiring being a train nerd.

After we got back to hornsby I headed off to westie with the little man to fill in time until his next feed. He wasn’t the most happy chappy and was screaming a bit in westie. and old lady came up to us on the travelator and said “you shoud put a dummy in that” and thn kept walking. I was very restrained and just looked at her.

Stupid old lady, he is 8 weeks old, he is doing what babies do.

the only downside to having a mac is there are no good train sim’s for mac.

nerd

this is my first blog post from on board a moving train with my nifty mobile broadband.

I feel like a nerd, but i like it.

now i must dash as other comuters wan to see what webpage i visit next.

If you are wondering how many train tickets I have managed to keep since the 4th of April 1997. It is 608

i’m glad I now work in glebe at least once a week because it has brought me much ticket love.

If there is a mecca for steam train and train enthusiasts I think it would be the entire UK.

its heaven

I think i’m going to have to  take control of organising the evens of each day on our UK trip in may. Soo much to see so little time.