Life at a quiet station

Text 1: The Halt at Coldwell, by Margaret Thursby

An original journal written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

We have been at Coldwell halt three years now, Joseph as station master and porter and clerk, and I as his wife and, when need be, all three of those besides. Four trains stop here each day and the express goes through twice without stopping. When I hear it coming I go to the door to watch, I cannot tell why. It is gone in a moment, a roar and a rush and a row of faces at the windows, ladies and gentlemen going to London, and then the rooks settle again in the elms.

On some days no passenger comes at all. Then I sweep the platform, though it is clean, and tend the geraniums in their tubs, for I would not have the travellers in the express think us slovenly, though I doubt any of them has ever looked.

Joseph says that we are a full stop in a very long sentence. I tell him that a sentence cannot do without its stops. But I own that sometimes, at dusk, when the signal lamp is lit and the line runs away on both sides into the dark, I feel we are at the very edge of the world.

Text 2: My Adopted Station, by Patrick Odunsi

An original contemporary blog.

Since I retired, I have been the volunteer adopter of a tiny unstaffed station on a branch line in the hills. It has one platform, a shelter, a bench and a timetable that offers five trains a day in each direction, though most days nobody gets on or off at all. I go up twice a week, pick litter, paint the bench and look after the planters, which this summer are full of lavender and marigolds.

People ask why I bother. The honest answer is that I am not sure. Most of the passengers on the through trains are looking at their phones and would not notice if the planters were full of weeds. But I like to think that one person, one day, might look up and see something cared for.

The best moment is the evening train. You hear it a long way off, then it is there, lit up like a moving room full of strangers, and then it is gone round the bend and the silence closes back over the valley like water. Sometimes, standing there alone, I feel I am minding a door that very few people ever open.

Both writers describe looking after a small, quiet railway station.

What are the similarities between the writers’ thoughts and feelings about the station?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.