Standing On the Platform (poetry challenge)

Wise after the event.

I was standing on the platform

of a station that was axed.

No one told me it had been;

perhaps I should have asked.

Or maybe have paid attention

to my grandfather’s teaching

who advised me to be wary

of someone called Dr. Beeching.

It was that shrewd industrialist

who was going to be our saviour

by studying our travel habits

and challenging our behaviour.

Why do you want to go by train,

he asked, why not by bus?

You can switch , without a doubt,

with the minimum of fuss.

Fifty years have now elapsed

since that ‘wise’ pronouncement,

the reason why we find

ourselves in a predicament.

We did not achieve the savings

that Beeching had suggested;

now we have got fewer trains

and  the roads are congested.

© Luigi Pagano  2016