train jockey extraordinaire

my ferny grove train in the morning leaves at either 7:06, 7:16, 7:26 or 7:40. the 7:06 is express from enoggera to bowen hills, so that's the best one to take, and the one i'm usually on. work is at milton which means i need to change to the ipswich/darra line at either central or roma st. the 7:06 and the 7:16 get me to central or roma street about four minutes before an ipswich train. but on the 7:26 or 7:40 the changeover window is shorter, maybe a minute. so i have to hustle. a delay can cause me problems, and when i do miss it i have a 20 minute wait, so if i'm at roma street it's amost quicker to walk to milton. so today i was on the 7:40 and there was about a two minute delay somewhere near wilston. i jumped off at central, platform 2, and saw that the ipswich train on platform 5 was already flashing. the thing about the flashing is you don't know how long it's been flashing. you might have a few minutes to get there or it might be leaving in seconds. (they ought to increase the flash frequency gradually until the train departs but that's another post). the stairs at central were jam packed as usual so i figured i probably wouldn't make it and would be late for work. then it dawned on me that i still had a chance. i jumped back on the train i'd just got off. i moved up three carriages so as to be close to the stairs at roma street. i bolted off the train at roma street where the stairs and concourse are less congested, ran down the stairs of platform 5, across and up the stairs at platform 8. now the screens at this point actually weren't showing my green ipswich line so i thought i was a goner. but halfway the stairs i saw the train in it's usual place and the screen on the platform was green rather than cyan which means terminating here at roma st. just then the platform staff blew the whistle. i still had about 10 steps to go. i actually stopped running a bit, thinking the doors would close, but they remained open as i got closer and closed about a second after i jumped on. massive. win. (i really like trains).