Stanly Longo stood shivering on Flinders Street Station, at 10:11 PM, regretting his decision to work overtime that night.   “The train should be here soon…I hope!” he hoped.   But, as though reading his thoughts, the station attendant wandered down from his box a few metres away to say, “Word’s just come through, the train’s been delayed outside Camberwell another forty minutes.”

When at last the train did arrive Stanly shambled forward and collided with the door.   “What the…?” he said.   He staggered backward, wondering why the electronic doors hadn’t opened.   Then seeing the blood-red colour of train and the funny thin, sliding doors, he realised, “My word it’s a red rattler!”   The red rattler or “Tait trains” were Victoria’s first suburban trains.   Introduced in 1921, they lasted sixty-one years, till in 1982 the government finally phased them out.

“But I haven’t seen one of these old rattlers since,” Stanly said.   He had to stop to consider for a moment before saying, “Since the early 1980s.   A good fifteen years.   Surely they’re not bringing them back into service?”

He remembered wistfully as a boy doing the “red rattler crouch” in winter.   The rattlers had seats set out in pairs facing each other, with one small door, sliding open to the left between each pair of seats.   By the 1960s the rattlers had been in use forty years and their catches were all shot.   So as the train hit a bend the doors would all suddenly slide open.   Or if already open slide shut with a bang.   So when it was freezing or raining it was necessary to hold the door shut and people would place themselves strategically around the carriage to try to cover all the doors in the compartment.   But since an arm would soon be aching, it was easier to crouch down in the seat and put up your left foot to hold the door shut.

Stanly smiled as he recalled seeing whole rows of accountants and professional people on the way to work all demeaning themselves by doing the “red rattler crouch” in preference to freezing.

As he stepped aboard he smiled to himself and said, “The red rattler crouch.”