The non-appearance of a booked taxi, and the resultant mercy dash to deposit my agitated Sydney-bound guest at the airport, recently highlighted for me a peculiarity with Adelaide passenger trains.
Speeding down Park Terrace towards Port Road, what should befall this hurried duo but a pair of rapidly descending level-crossing gates and the ‘ding-ding’ of the railway bells, forcing our vehicle to a sudden halt. What followed was a volley of curses from our interstate visitor expecting that our journey would be severely interrupted by this Murphy’s Law-inspired intervention.
He needn’t have worried. No sooner had the gates come down, they lifted skywards again, having enabled the efficient and safe passage of one of Adelaide’s many single-carriage passenger trains (unlike the one pictured above – a rarity). We were on our way again within seconds, and despite lingering concern about missing his flight, my friend afforded himself a chuckle at the strange sight.
Apparently in Sydney, trains have more than one carriage. And what’s more, they’re ‘double-decker’, permitting passengers to choose between upstairs or downstairs. Here I was thinking that ‘double-decker’ was synonymous only with buses and that this mode of public transport could be found exclusively in the Mother Country.