86 tram

Platform 4 at Parliament is a long way underground. The top of the second escalator is out of sight from the bottom. After I touch off three flights of static stairs remain to be climbed to the surface in Albert Street. As I climb those stairs I hope and pray that an 86 tram doesn’t roll past.

It’s the same in the afternoon as I trudge three blocks up Peel Street. Every step brings the possibility of just missing the tram a smidge closer. I hate missing public transport. I hate waiting. I carry timetables: if a train departs at 7:52, I time my arrival on the platform for 7:51.

The journey to work passes quickly; the journey home takes forever. Oddly enough, if I average it out, the homeward leg is about ten minutes longer. In the morning I walk to the station, arrive bang on time. In the evening I’m dependent on a tram to deliver me to the station and therein lies the problem.

A tram timetable is wrapped around a post at every stop but tram timetables are meaningless: trams come when they come. A delayed tram is like compound interest; the delay grows exponentially. Waiting passengers accumulate along the route, take longer to load and unload. Soon an empty second tram is right behind the first but can’t pass to absorb the overflow.

One evening on the walk up Peel Street three city-bound trams cross the gap up on Smith Street. I moan. Smith Street’s a cold canyon on a winter night and home is another planet.

The tram is different, different clientele, different ambience to the train. Lovers travel by tram not train. Smelly old bastards use the tram. Asians go by train, Somalis, Aborigines and Muslims hop a tram.

I like the way a tram sweeps round a corner, from Smith up the Gertrude Street hill. I like that my tram, the 86, runs along Gertrude, recently dubbed the chicest street in Melbourne. I peer through the spattered window and I can see why: it’s down-market Trendsville out there.

The tram grows on me.

Rock on.