Felix The Railway Cat

Felix was good company on the night shift. There were only two human team members on duty, and each had their own responsibilities, so it could be a lonely and even, at times, intimidating shift to work. But with Felix there, it was as if she were an extra person. She kept them going. ‘Come on, lovey, let’s go down here,’ Angie would say, as they wandered into one isolated corner or another. Felix would follow, and her presence would take their minds off what could be waiting in the dark …

Before the doors were shut at half past midnight, one of the major jobs of the team leaders was to organise the shunt movements of the carriages. At Huddersfield, there are some sidings – essentially, a train ‘car park’ – alongside the main tracks. Innumerable trains came in at night, which would then lie dormant until the early-morning services the following day, and the team leaders had to find them all somewhere to sleep. Yet it was a complicated process. The trains would arrive in a higgledy-piggledy order, but the team leaders had to make sure that they ‘slept’ in a pattern that would enable the early-morning services to run on time. The team leaders were told the night before which train would be leaving at 5 a.m. and which at 5.25, for example, so they had to ensure that the 5 a.m. train wasn’t stuck behind the 5.25, even if the earlier train had come in first. The shunt movements were the movements of all these carriages late at night, and executing the movements successfully was rather like completing a Rubik’s cube, as one ‘twisted’ and transported the trains first one way and then another.

An additional complication was that customer services were still running while the shunt movements were going on, and these of course took priority. Platforms 1, 4 and 8 had to be kept clear at all times for express services, and God forbid there was any hold-up.

In order to keep track of it all, one of the team leaders’ jobs was to sort out what was called a ‘unit diagram’. A ‘unit’ meant the train or carriage; it was a diagram of all the station platforms and the sidings, showing which unit had to sleep where, so that they could be shunted into the relevant positions before the station shut down for the night.

Frankly, Felix felt exhausted just watching them do it. She, of course, remained safely on Platform 1, observing the activity from a distance, as the team leader directed proceedings and the shunt drivers, in their orange hi-vis outfits, moved the trains to the sidings, then crunched back along the gravelled tracks to return to the platforms. It was a collegiate sort of atmosphere, late at night, and Felix’s ears would twitch as she heard the cheery human voices carrying easily in the still air, and then again as the drivers started to leave and their car engines would fire up, then fade away to nothing.

After that, it was just Felix, the two team members and the cleaners on duty, who steadily made their way around all the sleeping trains, dragging Henry the Hoover behind them. As for Henry, Felix would follow him closely with her eyes as he rattled along the platforms, as though he was some sort of scarlet smiley animal that she had to keep tabs on – but he never did anything but noisily trundle along before disappearing inside the dark, slumbering trains.

Felix perhaps liked the station best at night. There were no roaring trains; the crows were fast asleep. It was a time when it truly became her domain – and she asserted herself as soon as the heavy front doors were locked. Every night, as soon as the huge pole had been bolted across the towering doors, Felix would prowl around, running her own security checks, as though to find out: ‘What have those humans been doing with my kingdom today?’ She investigated every corner of the concourse, casing the joint with her emerald eyes, leaving no stone unturned. She padded silently on her four white paws. Though often, in the daytime, if she shook her head or leapt from floor to desk her pink metal heart tag would jangle against her collar, at night she seemed to have perfected the art of the silent assassin, and not a footfall could be heard as she tiptoed through the station. She moved thoughtfully, not rushing as she sometimes did: the station cat was very much in charge.

Silence reigned everywhere. The ticket office windows had been closed since 8 p.m.; the room behind their drawn shades was dark and still. At either end of Platform 1, both pubs had long since shut for business, and the clink of the beer bottles joining their fellows in the recycling bins and the raucous laughter of the revellers had long since faded away. Above Felix’s head, as she continued to stalk along Platform 1, the train display boards no longer showed a continuous list of services, the orange digits updating every few minutes. Only three services ran at night, and in between their arrival and departure Felix ruled the roost.