Derek Throttlebottom the Time Travelling Train Spotter

“What did you say?” I said.

“I said don’t interfere with anything, you’ll ruin it all” Derek Throttlebottom barked the repeat instruction, as if my very presence here was riling him, though it probably was.

“Alright, you don’t have to tell me twice“

Derek Throttlebottom frowned at me with his usual suffer no fools glare and then stepped back outside on to the narrow icy pathway that had been cleared through the snow. I watched him walk down the full length of the platform, treading carefully on the frozen snow that shone bright by the light of the full moon hanging above the town. The frozen snow crunched loudly underfoot with each historic step.

‘Don’t interfere’ I recalled as I returned to my cosy warm chair in the station Tea Room, the crackling fire routinely spitting out hot projectiles on to the hearth. ‘Perhaps I should return the fairy cakes on the display back to their original positions’. I said to myself.

“There you go dear, get that down you” The old tea lady took me by surprise. She coughed her words, a spent half of a cigarette clutched twixt her parsed lips. I shooed her filthy smoke away with an exaggerated grimace, but she just rolled her eyes at me, tutting, as she turned back to the counter from whence she came. The smoking ban may have been a long way from here, but that didn’t mean I should inhale her cancerous filth.

After she’d placed the cup of hot Bovril and two slices of generously buttered thick white bread on the small round table beside me, she stopped for a moment to peer out through the misty window. She saw Derek, my travelling companion outside, stood at the very end of the platform. She parted a dirty look in his direction. “Is he alright?” She chirped, “Standing out in the cold all night with barely a jacket“

“Oh he’s fine. He’s quite warm out there” I told her, I considered explaining his fleece jacket and twenty first century thermal underwear but I was interrupted before I could.
“In the head I mean” She said, “He’s been standing out there for nearly an hour and nothing’s come in. The next train is the London one and that don’t stop here”
“Oh he knows how he looks…” I couldn’t tell her why we were here. That we were time travelers on a secret mission to change a catastrophic sequence of events and avert a terrible tragedy, but before I’d had chance to remember my cover story, she’d wandered off, mumbling something about the oddness of trainspotters.

Derek hadn’t told me why we were here. But I knew my history. It was the 29th January 1957. The night of the great railway disaster.

It was freezing outside, I could see Derek through the window, at the very end of the platform, lit up like a Christmas tree beneath the brightest full moon I ever saw. Surrounded by his own breath that hung close to him in the windless night as he checked the battery on his digital camera. What good the camera would do I had no idea, but I had faith in his judgement. This was my first trip with Derek, but he was a seasoned traveler, and I was only allowed to join him because I’d promised to follow his list of rules.

• Do everything he says
• Don’t touch anything
• Don’t talk to anyone
• Watch where I step
• Don’t ask stupid questions
• Don’t wander off

Somewhere up the line was the very late 15:25 from Glasgow to London, it wouldn’t stop here, but would carry on south through the freezing night, until somewhere just south of Preston, frozen points would misroute the train into the back of the local Liverpool service. Twenty people would die this evening, were it not for the brave intervention of one time travelling train spotter. My skin tingled, excited to see what Derek would do stop it happening, to rewrite history.

I looked at the clock above the fire. It was one minute before eight. A whistle, miles away, heralded the approach of the 15:25. It was delayed at Carlisle by a snow drift blocking the line and was trying to make up time. It got louder and louder as it approached, the train was now slowing for the curve, and by now the pistons were audible, Chuff Chuff Chuff. The blanket of snow muffled most of noises of the town, but the oncoming train grew louder and louder. Chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff.

Derek hadn’t moved at all. Still standing at the edge of the platform, anxiously fiddling with his camera. What was he planning?

The train drew closer. The whistle sounded. It was very near.

I tore myself from the fire and left the warmth of the cafe, out into the frozen wilds of Cornfirth Platform One. It was almost upon us. Looking up the track I could see its silhouette against the snow covered whiteness of the embankment, smoke bellowing out from its chimney. It was slowing down. I looked the other way to where Derek stood, the signal set to caution. Was that Derek’s doing?

The whistle blew again as the doomed train entered the station. I had yet to work out Derek’s plan, but he must have been confident. He was taking pictures of the fateful last journey as it went on its way, gaining speed now. The driver opening up the regulator in response to the clear road granted by the signalman, the station filled with smoke.

I looked into the well lit carriages as the train steamed through the station. Through the condensation on the windows, I could see the passengers, oblivious to their fate, I saw every single face on that train, everyone of them made eye contact, meeting my gaze with their long dead piercing eyes, glaring at me, as if they knew, as if I was responsible. It seemed a lifetime before the guards van passed at the very rear of the train and faded in to the night.

Now I was confused. Derek seemed to have done nothing. I followed the train up the platform, a flashing red light marking its position as it slowly accelerated in to the fateful night. I marched up to Derek. He was wearing one of his wider grins, the self satisfied one.

“Did you do it?” I asked him, anxiously. I could still see the passengers in my minds eye.

“I Sure did” Derek replied, proudly, “I got exactly what we came here for” and he offered his camera to me to see the screen. “46603, look at those shots…” 

“And the crash? Did you stop the crash?”

Derek looked at me blankly. Like I was speaking Urdu or something.

“Don’t be daft lad” he said “The crash already happened long before we were born, can’t change that“

“Then why are we even here?” I said, flapping somewhat.

“Here, in the past the past you mean?” He said, “Why do you think?”

“Beats me” I said, and I shrugged my shoulders.

“I’m a trainspotter, I’m here for the numbers” he said, “That’s all”