Just as we think we have reached the end

Seemingly no way forward

All options apparently exhausted

I am reminded of train number 48624

Fallen out of use

Abandoned to the scrapheap

Or so it seemed

 

One winter’s day in the nineteen eighties

Stood facing into the icy wind

As with frozen fingers I take a photograph

Preserved for posterity now

This relic of a former train

Decaying glimpse into our industrial past

Feeling a sense of sadness

Taking in the skeletal remains

Of this once vital engineering miracle

Apparently, now to gently fade away

Like the past sometimes does

 

Little realising the truth

Discovered the very day I wrote this poem

Twenty-eight years it took

Train number 48624 rescued

Restored to beyond former glory

Proudly travelling the track once more

A miracle of perseverance

 

And a personal lesson learned

Sometimes things in life need to fall apart

To be put back together

Re-born shiny and new

And raise steam once more

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