RED RATTLER TO SOUTHERN CROSS

Steve Brooks finds himself upon a disused train, stopping at a dilapidated station!

Steve Brooks stood shivering on Flinders Street Station, at 10:11 PM, regretting his decision to work overtime that night.

“Oh Jesus!” he said after taking a sip of the god-awful vending machine coffee.

He glanced at his wristwatch and saw that he had been at the station for nearly twenty minutes. The train should be here soon ... I hope! he thought. But, as though reading his thoughts, the station attendant wandered down from his box a few metres away to say, “Word’s just come through, the train’s been delayed outside Camberwell another forty minutes.”

Steve gave the attendant a wry smile, thinking, So what else is new. The damn trains have never run to schedule in my lifetime, and I’m nearly sixty-five!

When at last the train did arrive, Steve shambled forward and collided with the door. “What the ... ?” he said. He staggered backwards, wondering why the electronic doors had not opened.

Seeing the blood-red colour of the train and the funny thin, wooden, sliding doors, he realised, “My God, it’s a red rattler!”

The red rattler or “Tait trains” were Victoria’s first suburban trains. Introduced in 1921, they had lasted sixty-one years, till in 1982 the government finally phased them out.

“But I haven’t seen one of these old rattlers since,” Steve said. He had to stop to consider for a moment before saying, “Since the early 1980s. A good forty-odd years. Surely they’re not bringing them back into service?”

He remembered wistfully as a boy doing the “red rattler crouch” in winter. The rattlers had seats set out in pairs facing each other, with one small door, sliding open to the left between each pair of seats. By the 1970s, the rattlers had been in use fifty years, and their catches were all shot. So, as the train hit a bend, the doors would all suddenly slide open. Or if already open, slide shut with a bang rather than a rattle. So, when it was freezing or raining, it was necessary to hold the door shut, and people would place themselves strategically around the carriage to try to cover all the doors in the compartment. But since an arm would soon be aching, it was easier to crouch down in the seat and put up your left foot to hold the door shut.

Steve smiled as he recalled seeing whole rows of accountants and professional people on the way to work, all demeaning themselves by doing the “red rattler crouch” in preference to freezing. Suddenly having to sit up to allow the doors to slide open as they came into the next station; then they would crouch back down, left foot raised, as the train pulled out again.

As he stepped aboard, he smiled to himself and said, “The red rattler crouch.”

“Yes, I remember it too,” said a voice in the carriage.

Startled, he turned and saw a familiar face.

“Todd Savage,” Steve said in amazement. “I haven’t seen you in ... ?”

“In yonks,” agreed Todd.

“It must be thirty years or more since the red rattlers were ....” He paused for a second. “Were supposedly phased out.”

“Yes, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?” said Todd, walking across to him. “Funny, it only seems like yesterday,” he added wistfully.

Todd started to sit next to Steve. Then, as the train lurched into motion, all the doors slammed open with a crash. Todd said:

“Sorry to be unsociable, but I’d better sit over here.”

So, as Steve crouched down in his seat to hold the door shut with his left foot, Todd sat diagonally opposite him on the other side of the paired seats, doing likewise.

“God only knows what this thing will sound like going through the underground?” Steve said. “I seem to recall that these rattlers were, supposedly, phased out before the City Loop opened in the early ’80s.”

“It’d probably sound like an endless creeping barrage,” agreed Todd. “With the already deafening rattle amplified by the tunnels ... But I don’t think we’re going to find out.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

Then he realised that the train hadn’t gone out toward Richmond to the nearest Loop entrance. Instead, it was going down Flinders Street, toward Southern Cross Station.

Lord! thought Steve. It’s weird enough to find myself on a red rattler in 2025! But a red rattler to Southern Cross! Aloud, he said, “I haven’t been to Southern Cross Station since the early 1980s. When it was still called Spencer Street Station.”

“Who has?” asked Todd Savage. “That’s when the underground Loop opened, remember?”

“Yes, but ... ” began Steve. He stopped as he realised what Todd meant. “Of course, they built one of the Loop entrances in the wrong spot.”

“That’s right,” said Todd with a mirthless smile. “The first is between Richmond and Flinders Street, so the other should have been between Flinders Street and, at that time, Spencer Street Station.”

“But the idiots placed it one station further out,” Steve said, watching the pink and white neon-topped towers as they rattled down Flinders Street. “Between Southern Cross and North Melbourne Stations.”

“So whichever way the trains enter the Loop, they always bypass Southern Cross Station,” Todd finished for him.

“Which explains why I haven’t been to Southern Cross Station since the Loop opened.”

“Exactly,” said Todd. “A pity. The old Spencer Street Station used to be such a beautiful station. The second largest railway station in Victoria; the fourth or fifth largest in Australia. Yet, because of a bungle by four state premiers during the twenty-year planning and building stage -- Henry Bolte, Rupert Hamer, Lindsay Thompson, and John Cain -- that none of them noticed the error, Southern Cross Station has been reduced to a ghost station.”

“God only knows what it’ll look like after decades virtually out of service,” Steve said.

They heard the clatter of doors up and down the train rattling open as the train roared round the sharp bend from Flinders to Southern Cross. Then, “My God!” said Steve as they finally pulled into Southern Cross Station. “It’s even more dilapidated than I had expected.”

Dust and detritus ankle-deep covered the platform. The station sign had broken free at one end and hung down, almost touching a wooden bench.

“Surely no one can work here anymore?” Steve said, trying to peer up into the attendant’s box on the platform. He thought that he could see someone moving about in the dully-lit box, but couldn’t be sure. “Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.”

But instead of starting again almost immediately, the train stayed put. And a metallic-sounding voice boomed over the intercom: “Due to a minor electrical fault, the departure of the train on platform number five has been delayed for at least fifteen minutes.”

“Oh no!” said Steve. “It’ll be well after midnight before I get home.”

Todd Savage only shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “I’m not worried,” he said. He picked up a newspaper from the seat beside him. “I’ve got my paper to read. Would you like the sports’ section? I seem to recall you’re a sports fan. You can see how the Aussie cricketers are doing against the bleeding-heart Poms.”

“No thanks, I think I’ll get out for a few minutes and stretch my legs. I’ve still got a long train ride ahead of me.”

“Yes, a long train ride ahead of you,” agreed Todd.

Steve opened the rattly door of the Tait train and stepped out.

When he stepped down onto the station, his feet sank to the ankles in dust and detritus. He was tempted to turn around and step straight back into the train.

“My God!” he said.

He stared in horror at the ten-centimetre-thick layer coating the platform. Dust, orange peels, rotten fruit, discarded lolly wrappers, and plastic and Styrofoam cups covered the platform from one end to the other.

“What a stinking mess,” he said. He wrinkled up his nose at the smell of death and decay as he tentatively took a step forward. “How could it have got this bad since I was here last?” Then he thought, Still it’s forty years since I was here last. Since anyone was here last?

Then, as he continued forward, he thought, But in that case, why did the train stop here tonight? Southern Cross has been a ghost station since the early ’80s. No trains are supposed to stop here anymore. To assure himself, he looked round and saw the red rattler behind him and thought, Well, at least some trains must still stop here.

Tentative of every step, as though afraid of what he might step in, Steve continued forward. He sniffed at the musty air, sneezed, and thought, Well, it certainly smells as though no one has been here in decades.

Despite wanting to look down to watch where he was stepping, Steve forced himself to look up, to avoid any allergic reaction to the puffs of dust that sprayed up each time that one of his feet touched down. It’s like walking on eight or ten centimetres of talcum powder, he thought.

“Talcum powder containing rotting oranges, apples, and dead birds,” he said aloud. He stared in horror at the carcases of half a dozen sparrows and one great sea-gull, which he had almost stepped upon. My God, it has been decades since anyone else has been here. Maybe I’m crazy to be walking in this? He thought, wondering if it were dangerous. Maybe I could catch something?

Then as something long and black scuttled out from beneath a potato crisp packet centimetres in front of him, to disappear down the side of the platform under the train, he thought, Or be bitten or stung by something!

Despite his lifelong terror of spiders and other hard-shelled creepy-crawlies, he forced himself onward. He carefully sidestepped any of the long, gossamer threads of spider web that hung down seemingly by the thousands from the rafters of the platform canopy.

As his stomach began to rumble, he thought, Yes, I guess I am long overdue for my dinner. Looking round the platform, he saw a brown metal vending machine and said, “I wonder if it would still have any chocolate in it?” And whether it would still be safe to eat! he thought as he wandered across toward the glass-fronted machine.

He stared in at the assortment of chocolate bars, potato crisps, and corn chips. Some of the bags had burst open, their contents scattered through the metal coils of the machine. “But the others look all right,” he said. He started to hunt through his coat pockets, uncertain if he had any change with him.

“After all, as long as they’re still in their foil, they’ll last forever, won’t they?” he said, wondering if it were true. “They might be a bit stale, but I’ve eaten stale chocolate bars before.”

For a moment it looked as though the decision would be taken out of his hands, as he struggled to find any coins. The new vending machines on Flinders Street Station could take $5 and $10 notes as well as coins. But there was no slot for notes on this rusty machine. It looks at least fifty years old! Steve thought. Machines clever enough to handle notes only go back a few decades. In this country, at any rate.

Then, he located half a dozen twenty-cent and fifty-cent coins in an inner coat pocket.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he said, dropping a fifty-cent coin into the slot. The coin was already rattling through the works of the vending machine when Steve heard a rustling inside the machine.

“What the ... ?” he said.

Steve peered through the grimy glass as the rustling continued. After a moment, he detected movement in a bag of corn chips near the bottom of the machine. He bent down until he was at eye level with the bag ....

Which suddenly burst open to reveal the long-whiskered snout of a huge brown rat.

“Jesus!” cried Steve. He jumped backwards in fright and fell over onto the thick carpet of dust, which cushioned his fall, but sprayed up over him as it fell back to earth.

“Oh God!” he cried as he burst into a fit of sneezing for a few seconds. You bloody idiot! he cursed himself as he quickly climbed back to his feet, ever wary of other scuttling things that might be lurking beneath the dust. Rats are omnivores, he reminded himself, not carnivores. They mainly live off fruit and nuts. Forcing himself to look at the rat in the vending machine, he added, And corn chips when they can get them. Rats won’t eat meat unless they’re starving. And even then they usually won’t attack living human beings.

“Isn’t that right?” he said to the rat. At the sound of his voice, it looked up at him. Then after a second, it went back to nibbling the large yellow corn chip, which it held in its front paws.

“Well, I suppose I’d better forgo any snacks from this machine,” said Steve. He pressed the reject button twice and scooped out his fifty-cent coin. At the sound of the coin ejecting, the rat looked up and squeaked from fright, but stayed where it was. Reluctant to give up its cache of goodies until certain it was under attack.

“Relax. Go back to your meal,” said Steve, pocketing his money.

Leaving the vending machine, he walked over to the back of the wooden attendants’ box. Upon which were plastered numerous timetables in glass frames. “1980, ’81, ’82?” he read the dates off the timetables. “Well, they certainly haven’t been changed in four decades.”

He looked up at the back of the attendants’ box in dismay. Once, one of the highlights of Southern Cross Station had been the cheery yellow plaster tiles covering the outside of the attendants’ box and the walls of the ramps up to street level. Now most of the tiles had fallen off and lay broken in the dirt on the platform, leaving behind squares of hard mortar where they had been. Or else the tiles were cracked or broken, or coated in thick, green fungus. “Just because four state premiers, and maybe a dozen ministers of transport, were all too dumb to pick out the fact that one of the entrances to the underground City Loop was placed in the wrong spot!” Steve cursed them aloud.

He reached out to touch one broken tile, but quickly pulled his hand away as something scuttled around inside the crack.

“Surely no one works here anymore?” said Steve. But an announcement came over the intercom earlier? he thought. But then he realised that it could have been piped through from Flinders Street Station. As happens with small country stations where it’s no longer regarded as cost-efficient to have staff located.

He had started to go to investigate, but suddenly felt an itching in his bladder and knew that he had to relieve himself. Let’s hope I’ve got time before the train leaves! he thought. It will be 1:00 AM by the time I get home as it is, without missing the last train and having to camp down in this rotten nest.

Taking no chances, he set off at a run past the attendants’ box without looking around to see if it was occupied. As he ran, the centimetres of dust puffed up around him, causing him to wheeze and cough.

Let’s hope it’s not so bad at the upper level? he thought, racing up the ramp as best he could, sliding back occasionally in the dust. All the fast-food stalls were locked up for the night. But that’s only to be expected, Steve thought, knowing it must be nearly midnight. But he noticed that the wire guard-rails were heavy in rust and thought, Surely they couldn’t open them with that degree of rust?

Just a few more paces! he assured himself as his bladder almost released. Then he was pushing open the squeaky door of the men’s room, relieved that the upper level was less grimy than the lower.

He grimaced as he struggled not to let loose until he had unzipped and taken out his penis. “Finally,” he said, relieved as he let go at last toward the rust-stained urinal. Well, this certainly hasn’t been cleaned in years! he thought, trying hard not to gag on the overpowering stench of stale urine and faeces from the cubicles behind him. In the half dark of the one working light in the room, he scanned the rust-pocked chromium of the urinal in dismay.

“This was once such a beautiful railway station!” Steve said as he finished up.

It was only as he was zipping up again that Steve had the feeling that he was not alone. Turning to his right, he saw a tall, pale figure standing at the other end of the urinal in darkness.

“I’m sorry,” Steve apologised, “I thought I was ....”

He stopped to stare in horror at the sight before him ....

A brittle, yellowing skeleton on the brink of collapse from decay, standing up as though it were using the urinal. One hand in position to hold its penis out. Although it had no penis or bladder to empty, and no urethra to empty it with.

“Holy Jesus!” cried Steve, startled by the reverberant echo of his words in the cavernous lavatory.

As the sound of his cry rang out, the aged skeleton started to twitch as though coming to life.

“Oh Jesus!” said Steve, watching in horror.

Too terrified to run, he stood rooted to the spot, expecting it to step down off the iron grate and turn toward him. Instead, the skeleton began to shudder and slowly collapse in on itself; so fragile with age that even the echoing of Steve’s voice was enough to send it crashing into a pile of dust across the metal urinal, iron grate, and tiled floor.

As the skeleton collapsed, Steve started running toward the door. “I’ve got to get back to the train,” he said, “there’s no way that I could stay in this hellish place overnight.”

In the dim night, he tripped and slid halfway down the ramp before managing to get back to his feet again. Then -- not bothering to rub himself down -- he raced down to the platform level, back toward the train.

As Steve approached the small, glass-fronted door of the attendants’ box, he saw a blue-uniformed Vic-Rail officer bent over the wooden bench along the back of the box. The man was poring over a plethora of faded timetables scattered across the desk.

Tapping gently upon one of the glass panes in the door, Steve said, “Excuse me, do you know ...?”

“Yes?” said the attendant, turning round toward him.

“I wondered if ...?” began Steve. He stopped in horror, staring in disbelief at the sight before him.

“Yes, what is it?” demanded the rotting corpse wearing the blue uniform.

My God, I must be hallucinating! thought Steve, staring in shock at the yellowing skull from which a few mouldering strips of dried flesh hung. A baby-blue eye stared from the left socket, the right socket was empty, except for a large, yellow-white maggot squirming around.

“What is it?” repeated the litch. It took a lurching step toward the front of the attendants’ box.

“Holy Jesus!” cried Steve, turning.

Too quickly, so that he fell and sprained his left ankle. As he fell, the dead railway worker stepped down from the box and reached out a rotting hand toward him.

“No! Get away from me!” Steve shrieked.

Despite the agony in his left ankle, he pulled himself to his feet. Then he started half running, half limping down the station toward the red rattler.

Oh my God, I’ve got to warn Todd! Steve thought. What kind of insanity of death and decay have we got ourselves into?

“Todd! For God’s sake, Todd!” shouted Steve as he lurched down the platform.

“Hey, wait up!” Steve heard the voice of the litch call.

Behind him, he heard heavy footsteps and the puff-puff-puff of dirt and detritus spraying up at each step as the corpse staggered after him.

“Todd! For Christ’s sake! We’ve got to get out of here!” Steve shouted. He pulled open the sliding door and half fell, half leapt into the blood-red train.

“Got to get out of here?” echoed Todd Savage, obviously not understanding.

“My God, he’s following me! That damn thing is following me! It can’t be far behind me!” cried Steve.

Yet when he sat up, with Todd’s help, there was no sign of the mouldering station attendant.

“But he was ... ” began Steve. He stopped as he heard the whistle to start the train. Looking down the platform to his left, he saw the litch, no longer interested in him, standing three or four carriages away, raising the white flag in its left talon to start the train rattling out of the station at last.

Realising that Todd had also looked back at the sound of the whistle, Steve asked, “You saw it too, didn’t you?”

“Of course I saw him,” said Todd, sounding unconcerned. He returned to his seat and picked up his newspaper again.

“How can you say that you saw that ... that thing and then sit there reading?” demanded Steve.

“Relax, it comes as a shock to all of us at first.”

“What comes as a shock?” demanded Steve. He stared in disbelief and horror at two skeletons sitting further down the carriage.

Seeing his friend’s terrified look, Todd handed him part of the newspaper and said, “I think you’d better read that.”

“But what about them?” demanded Steve.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” said Todd. “They’re perfectly harmless. They’re what we call the Older Ones ... .”

“Older Ones?” echoed Steve. He stopped, shocked, as he read what Todd had handed him.

It was the obituary section of the paper. Circled in red ink was “Steven Jonathan Brook 1960-2025.”

“I’m afraid you never even made it to Flinders Street Station tonight,” explained Todd. “You were cut down by a red sports car crossing over the intersection at Swanston and Flinders Streets.”

“Never made it ... cut down ... ?” muttered Steve in disbelief. Yet the obituary repeated what he had just been told.

“This is what you might call the death train. Express from Southern Cross to Heaven, Nirvana, Mecca, or wherever you believe in.”

“What if you don’t believe in anything? If you’re an atheist?” asked Steve, thinking, I must be going mad! Or lying in a coma in hospital, dreaming all this!

“Then you’re doomed to ride the red rattler to Southern Cross forever. That’s their trouble,” said Todd, nodding back toward the two skeletons. “The Older Ones just never know when they’ve reached their station.”

“But why a red rattler and why to Southern Cross?” demanded Steve.

“Why not. The red rattler is a dead train -- no longer in use. Likewise, Southern Cross Station is now only a ghost station. So what better way to travel to Heaven, Mecca, or wherever?”

“But why ... ?” began Steve. He stopped as he noticed that instead of going on to North Melbourne, the train was turning off. “We’re heading into a siding ... ” he said. Then he realised, “No, a tunnel. We’re going down into the underground Loop after all.”

Then he quickly realised, “No, it’s much too large to be the claustrophobic Loop. The walls of the Loop almost touch the sides of the train.” Whereas this tunnel seemed to have metres to spare all around the train.

At first, there was near total darkness within the tunnel, for perhaps half a minute or so. But finally Steve called to Todd, “It’s beginning to lighten up at last.”

“Yes, I can see,” agreed Todd.

“We’re coming out into ... ” began Steve. He stopped in amazement at the great array of twinkling yellow lights. Like a gigantic Christmas lights display, yet many times greater than any display that Steve had ever seen before.

He stared at the lights for a moment before realising, “My God, they’re not lights, they’re stars.”

“Of course they’re stars,” agreed Todd. “We have to pass through them to go up to Heaven, Mecca, Nirvana or wherever you plan to get off. It’s nothing new to me; I’ve been through this before.”

Unable to take his eyes away from the sight of the star-lit heavens the red train was now travelling through, Steve asked, “Don’t tell me you’re one of the atheists doomed to travel the red rattler to Southern Cross forever?”

“Good heavens, no. I died two years ago and went on to my reward. But I was sent back to help you through your ordeal.”

“Then this is the only departure place from Australia?” asked Steve.

“Oh no, there’s about twelve spread round Australia. This is just the only one in suburban Victoria.”

As they spoke, Steve hung out the open doorway of the train and watched the twinkling stars whiz past. Suddenly, he was almost blinded as they approached a great luminous ball of yellow-white light.

“My God, looks like we’re heading straight into the sun!” cried Steve. He collapsed back into his seat, tightly clenching his eyes against the glare.

“Relax,” said Todd, “it’s just our first stop.”

THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia