Text 1: Before the first train, by Leah Morgan

An original contemporary online feature.

At half past five each morning, Nia Evans unlocks the waiting room at Penmawr station. Before the first train arrives, she checks the information screens, clears litter from the platforms and reports anything that might be unsafe. By six o’clock, commuters are already asking whether the trains are running on time.

Nia’s work changes from minute to minute. She carries a portable ramp to the correct carriage for passengers who use wheelchairs, guides people who cannot see the platform signs clearly and helps visitors find the right connection. Her radio and the information screens keep her updated, but they do not always make her job easy.

One wet Monday, a cancelled train left nearly seventy people waiting. Nia answered the same questions repeatedly while rain blew under the platform roof. One passenger blamed her for the cancellation, although she had no control over it. Ten minutes later, she was helping a family carry a pushchair over the footbridge.

Most passengers are grateful. A regular commuter brings her a hot drink on cold mornings, and people often thank her for getting them onto the correct train. When Nia’s shift ends at two in the afternoon, her step counter usually shows that she has walked several miles without leaving the station.

Text 2: Porter at Bellford Station, by Idris Vaughan

An original memoir written in a mid-twentieth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Text 2 recalls the writer’s work as a railway porter in the 1950s.

I reported for duty before five in the morning, when the station was silent except for the hiss of the engines. My first jobs were to light the waiting-room fire, sweep the platform and write the train times upon a large board in chalk.

Once the early trains began to arrive, there was little chance to stand still. I pushed a hand trolley piled with trunks, parcels and baskets, sometimes from one end of the station to the other. On winter mornings, I also spread grit where ice had formed along the platform edge. The smoke from the engines settled upon my uniform, however carefully I brushed it.

Passengers expected a porter to know everything. I carried luggage, showed people to the correct platform and helped children and elderly travellers into their compartments. If a train was late, impatient passengers demanded an explanation from me, though I knew no more than they did.

There were pleasant moments as well. Families returning from holiday sometimes gave me a small coin for carrying their cases, and one elderly traveller always brought me an apple from his garden. I did not finish until the afternoon train had departed and every parcel had been taken to the storeroom.

Explain what you learn from Text 1 and Text 2 about working at a railway station.

In your answer, write about:

• the jobs the station staff did;
• the problems they faced;
• the ways they helped passengers.

Refer clearly to both texts.