The Day the Trains Came

There is almost revivalistic or nativistic about the news that the trains will run once more to Bikol. It has the feeling of the Second Coming. For me anyway.

The major papers carried already photos of the coaches, some being refurbished and some just needing some cleaning. I can picture these trains passing by towns and villages that have died temporary deaths when the trains stopped running.

I do not know when the trains stopped running. What I remember now are my first trips to Manila via the train. We called them PNR. The station was PNR, and its station was both a metaphor and a fact for leaving Naga. Trains, in those days, were meant to take you away, far away from your own birthplace. It meant adventure and a seeking of fortune. There were two major stops then: Paco, grand, and Tutuban, ordinary. Sometimes, the train would stop at Biñan and Bikolanos would go always for the Puto Biñan. That was a warning you were near "Maneela." We never called the place "Maynila," for that was too "provinciano." That would reveal us as having learned the language from "pelikula" or "komiks."

But we were fond of the train. For various reasons.

I remember an uncle who would take it because it allowed him and his friends to have a drinking binge. Did we have rules then about alcohol on board? I do not know. What I now think of with fondness was this group of middle-aged men, facing each other and almost tipsy long before the train has rolled out of the station.

If alcohol was not banned, then it followed that there were other things that did escape detection. These trains were running long before the word "terrorism" sported global sheen. I do not think there were inspections then.

One of our grandmothers regaled us with her story about a young man being chased by three other men. Cornered where she was seated, this grandmother of ours took a machete from her bag and gave it to the young man. She thought it was not fair that three men would take on a single man. After the enemies ran away, the young man returned the blade to her. Later in life, she would be the talk of the town when she chased her brother with a bolo. The fight was over properties. She thought it was not fair her brother should scare her just because she was a man.

The train then had nurses and midwives on board. There was also a sleeping coach. The first-class was terrifically air-conditioned. My brother, Pempe,  and I always had fun using the overcoat we got from a relative. The coat was made in Czechoslovakia and had a collar made of fur. It was heavy to wear but made our stay in the wintry coach heaven.

I did not have any idea how cold it was then until I started working as coordinator for the International Cultural Youth Exchange. The first batch was composed of Hans from Germany, Brigit from Switzerland, Arne from Finland, and Anna from Northern Italy. All of them thought I booked them in the freight car closest to the freezer for vegetables.

By that time - 1978 - the South Road was already gaining popularity. The South Road was for buses. It meant dangerous highway curves. Not even the shorter bus ride though seduced us into taking that trip. The trains could plod for 12 and 14 hours but they were our train.

South Road became an option for us one summer. We boarded the train at Tutuban at about 7 pm. When we woke up at 6 am, we were still at the station. The train had not moved at all and no one explained to us what the reason was. We took the taxi to Pasay and took the Philtranco, then a suave and up-and-coming transportation star. The train, the Bicol Express, was a dowager, commanding attention but already in her death throes.

Now, the train is coming back. It will no longer just be a metaphor. I am going to definitely take it. I would like to see once more those towns that got abandoned by memories. Ragay, Del Gallego, Lupi and those villages hemmed in by forests and wondrous coves.

I have already written Hans Willman who is now official of the World Health Organization in Geneva. He was back in Manila last year and this year he was constantly informing me not to worry much about the AH1N1.

I have invited him to take the Bicol train once more, in a coach that may be will be cool but not wintry enough to demand us to be Polar Bears. Somewhere along the way, we will buy those green oranges that they then as young Europeans thought were lovely and exotic. He will remind me that metaphors do come back. When before "Biyaheng Bikol" meant a helplessly slow trip, this time - I hope - that phrase would mean something else. Then people in Manila as well as in Bikol would rediscover the true "Bikol Express" on track.

As for the hot dish, it should be able to gain back its many names, not one of them related to trains and speed.