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| Wavy Woodstock, ON June 2015 Thematic. Retro. Here. Original photo on Flickr |
The roof of the train station in Woodstock, a town about 60 km east of London, seems to have more than its fair share of structural issues. Or maybe this was the way buildings like this were built way back when.
I'm not entirely sure why it is as wavy as it seems in this photo, but I've been through this place a few times in recent months on my way to assignments in Toronto, and I always seem to be on the proper side of the train whenever we stop here. So I shoot it. Because I like when the other passengers look at me funny.
The neat thing about this place isn't really the roof. It's what happens on the platform below it. Because this isn't a controlled, staffed station. It's just a building, an open-to-the-world crossroads for people leaving for and returning from faraway places. And the people there to see them off and/or pick them up.
And it's those transient moments that always seem to happen here - more so than in any other city or town between here and the big city to the east. Friends and family members regularly gather on the platform waiting for folks to get off the train. Kids wave to parents, significant others give last-minute hugs to significant others, and grandmas and grandpas hang out for a while on shaded benches to watch the trains go by. No matter who the characters may be on any given day, this little dance in a quiet community plays out just as it has for years.
I don't know what it is about Woodstock that makes this unassuming train station such a temporarily vibrant place when so many other stops along the way are just...stops. This place, for reasons I may never understand, seems to wear its train station mystique just a little more proudly than any other, and I'm already looking forward to my next time here.
Your turn: Do you like - or dislike - goodbyes? Why?
I'm not entirely sure why it is as wavy as it seems in this photo, but I've been through this place a few times in recent months on my way to assignments in Toronto, and I always seem to be on the proper side of the train whenever we stop here. So I shoot it. Because I like when the other passengers look at me funny.
The neat thing about this place isn't really the roof. It's what happens on the platform below it. Because this isn't a controlled, staffed station. It's just a building, an open-to-the-world crossroads for people leaving for and returning from faraway places. And the people there to see them off and/or pick them up.
And it's those transient moments that always seem to happen here - more so than in any other city or town between here and the big city to the east. Friends and family members regularly gather on the platform waiting for folks to get off the train. Kids wave to parents, significant others give last-minute hugs to significant others, and grandmas and grandpas hang out for a while on shaded benches to watch the trains go by. No matter who the characters may be on any given day, this little dance in a quiet community plays out just as it has for years.
I don't know what it is about Woodstock that makes this unassuming train station such a temporarily vibrant place when so many other stops along the way are just...stops. This place, for reasons I may never understand, seems to wear its train station mystique just a little more proudly than any other, and I'm already looking forward to my next time here.
Your turn: Do you like - or dislike - goodbyes? Why?
Goodbyes when i might see the person again......they're ok.
ReplyDeleteGoodbyes when i might Not see the person again...they're not.
+ glad to hear that i'm not the only person with a somewhat perverse attitude to other folk watching us capture the random images!