A ride on the rails of heritage

Poetry-loving Thomas Brown has been equally besotted by trains since childhood, and today he reveals how the two passions are closely linked in his mind.

From the minister’s daughter, who set her most famous verse against the backdrop of the linoleum industry’s early 20th Century expansion in Kirkcaldy, to the lead singer of globally renowned Scottish folk band Capercaillie, the Perthshire octogenarian has been turning his thoughts to some of his favourite creators of words and music.

Mr Brown explains: “I read so many interesting articles in Craigie about our railways – not surprising, as they are more than just history.

“For so many years railways have inspired, and one thing I can’t help but notice is how railways never became such a feature of folk music as they have done in America, when you hear singers like the legendary Johnny Cash sing of the trains.

“In our country this never really got into the music scene, but there are poems about the railways. One of the best known is Night Mail by WH Auden.

“His poem describes the mail train on its journey passing village, town and countryside and it is a genuine work of art, while there is also the Scottish poet Mary Campbell Smith’s The Boy In The Train.”

The Bankfoot dweller goes on: “Robert Louis Stevenson wrote words to the early days of rail, but it’s a subject which somehow in our neck of the woods failed to inspire.

“Well, I have had a crack at it and I have written a poem called The Oban Train. In my mind I had that wonderful singer I so admire, Karen Matheson, who hails from

that lovely village of Tyndrum. When I wrote it I was thinking about the return journey going home to Oban from Glasgow via Tyndrum:

We are back in the Oban train,

From Glasgow once more again, Clickety-clack, clickety-clack,

Over the track, over the track,

By Tyndrum and Dalmally,

Our train it does tarry,

By loch and by mountain,

And many gushing fountain,

I am going home again,

On the Oban train.”

Tam concludes, ruefully: “I sent the poem to Karen but I do think she has her own composers – but worth a try.”

Dundee Scouts setting off from the city’s railway station in July 1976 for an international camp at Blair Atholl. Were you one of them?