Railway Reflections

Today's the day ...................... for a station

The above mural is to be found in Dumfries Station, where I dropped Will off today.  Believe it or not, he was off to attend a conference in Fort William - the place we left only five days ago after our holiday in the northwest?!

It's rather a nice station, I always think - opened by the Glasgow, Dumfries & Carlisle Railway in 1848.  It featured in the novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan.  Richard Hannay, fleeing from German secret agents, travels from London to Galloway, changing at Dumfries.  

In 1939, T S Elliot includes Dumfries in his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.  Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat, speaks with the police at Dumfries Station during the night.  And in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats, which is based on Elliot's book, the character is portrayed as a bright and energetic orange tabby cat, who lives and works on the mail trains.

No sign of Skimbleshanks there today unfortunately .....................