It stayed full until they reached Sydenham and would begin to empty after Campsie. Whether this was primarily a strategic move to find a less crowded carriage or proof they were moving up in the world, no one could be sure.īecause of their large numbers (four to twelve), the boys would often be dispersed in the carriage as the train filled up. In their senior years, they took a carriage further down the platform, near the front Front and Back flipped like the reversible seats each morning and afternoon. In their junior years, they took the carriage that stopped at the mouth of the stairs closest to the school bus drop-off spot. On his platform, the boy would reconvene with the other boys he had seen on the way to school. Then, he would yearn to be somewhere bigger than his city, a place where global histories would flourish, not realising what was all around him, history the groundwater linking out here and over there. ![]() Once he figured out these connections, the city, an alpha city, seemed to contract because of its accumulated familiarity. Through all this planning, he learnt how Sydney was connected at Central - the stairs, exits, and tunnels for the quickest changeovers and the escalators which mark the threshold between Intercity and suburban - and how Sydney expanded radially: the train lines, coloured ribbons that looped around the city before reaching into the suburbs and back. Other times, when he had an early mark or a free period, he would take a detour along different lines and coordinate where to meet up on the inevitable ride home. Sometimes, he would even catch the train to Redfern or Sydenham with them and then change trains, just to squeeze in a few more minutes together. He would wait with them on their platforms until he could no longer ignore the imminent arrival of his 15:49:00. In this way, as he began asking for more from the world, the boy came to learn about proximity and distance.Īt Central, he talked, laughed, and bickered with friends who came from suburbs all over Sydney, suburbs he would come to know vicariously like Carlton, Holsworthy, Kingsgrove, and North Sydney. These trips, without which his formative years could not be related, took him farther and farther afield, on various detours, and into contact with different people each time such that these journeys offered him their own education. After his final class of the day, he would catch the school bus to Central, the train from Central to Bankstown Station, and another bus from Bankstown to home. ![]() The boy would commute every weekday of his teenage years to and from his suburban home in the southwest and his selective school in inner city Sydney. And so when he began to travel for his studies, the boy found his mobility offered him a vantage point from which to relate to people and place.
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