Butch and Sundance have nothing on us

WHILE aware that the statute of limitations does apply to certain offences committed in the deep past, I’m left wondering whether there is such a statute on stupidity.

If not, I might be in trouble for what is about to follow.

My mind went back to the days of my youth upon reading an article in Toowoomba’s leading newspaper about a petition doing to the rounds calling for a fast train between the Garden City and Brisbane.

My mate Murph and I used to regularly jump on the old rail motor at Helidon and head for a weekend in Brisbane with our mate Fitzy who was at university down there in those days.

Fitzy and another mate used to share a house in Toowong where we’d stay the weekend before heading back on the rail motor on Sunday.

The trouble was, the rail motor was express from Ipswich to Roma St and didn’t stop at any suburban Brisbane stations in between.

So, even though we wanted to get off at Toowong, we would have to travel all the way into Roma St and then get a taxi back to Toowong.

On this particular Friday night, I pulled up the ticket man as he walked through our cabin and told him of our dilemma in not being able to get off at Toowong.

While sympathetic to our plight, he said they couldn’t stop the train as it would register at the command centre and he and the train driver would be in strife.

However, about 10 minutes later he returned, telling us he’d been speaking with the train driver.

Now, remember, these were much simpler, pre-workplace health and safety days.

The driver was also sympathetic to our plight and suggested, provided we kept everything quiet, he would slow the rail motor down to about 10 to 15kmh (which wouldn’t show up on the Queensland Rail command centre controls) as we rolled into Toowong and we could jump off.

Having not long before seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who were adept to such jumping from trains, we agreed with some enthusiasm.

Now, this was early Friday evening and the platform was packed with people heading home from work.

I can only imagine what those people must have thought as the rail motor chugged into the station only for two young blokes to jump out of an opened sliding door onto the platform and, after a quick rollover, rise, dust themselves off, wave to the driver and head off to the Royal Exchange Hotel upstairs.

A post script. I was interviewing a retired Queensland train driver for a story just two months ago and had told him this story.

However, I had only got to the part where we were talking to the ticket man and he said: “Wait a minute... I know how this story ends...”

Puzzled, because we’d always kept it pretty quiet, I asked how he knew.

“I was that driver!” he beamed, “We ended up getting into a bit of strife over that.”

I’m not too sure whether Murph and I would attempt such a jump from high-speed rail though.

I don’t think our knees would handle the landing these days.

❝ Having not long before seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who were adept to such jumping from trains, we agreed with some enthusiasm.