online: 15 june 2010 modified: 23 june, 2 july 2010 15 june 2010 uncommon humanity
at a railway station
...the station platform was almost deserted and i did not know whether to take the fast train or the one that stops everywhere... or if the empty train before me was either of these... so i ventured to ask the driver...
...i was amazed that he opened his window to talk to me... and, when that didn't seem enough, he got out and walked 50 metres to read and interpret the timetable for me and another passenger who followed us... his advice being to wait 15 minutes for the fast train and not to take his...
...i've never known a train driver (or any other railway person) to be so helpful, or to put people before objects and systems...
...when i told him this and said it is a marvellous happening (perhaps possible only in Belgium) he smiled and returned to his cab... and in a few minutes his own train departed...
...the other passenger and i travelled together in the fast train... and when it stopped half way along the route we were surprised and delighted to see the driver of the slow train standing on the next platform and waving to us...
...we just laughed in amazement as he smiled and waved goodbye!...
afterthought:
...i realise that this uncommon humanity may well have been impossible when the safety of rail travel depended almost entirely on precise rule-following by drivers, signallers and other employees...
...but now, as more and more of the safety of rail travel is being transferred to the designers of software and automatic devices (which can thus be made to 'fail-safe') it may at last be possible for the operators of railway systems to treat each other and passengers 'as people'... not 'as things'... (my lifelong hope, or even certainty, that mechanical inhumanity will eventually cease and we will see everyone as equally great)...
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