OPENING ANNOUNCEMENT

  On the morning of September 3rd, a telephone was picked up in Whitehall, and one word was spoken into it.

  Two days previously, the Minister of Transport had taken control of the railways, and on receipt of that word British railways switched over from a peace basis to a highly complicated war-time footing. This they could do because they were prepared. Nearly two years before that, when most people in this country were burying their heads in sand, the controlling officers of the four main British railways had been asked to draw up plans. Behind these men were one hundred years of tradition and experience, one hundred years of planning and preparing against breakdowns, derailments, storms, landslides, against acts of God and acts of man. To look ahead was part of their job. And in 1938, they looked ahead and took a picture of what they saw to the Government.

  The Government listened. The four main systems began to work secretly - the L.M.S., the L.N.E.R., the G.W.R., and the Southern. The competition of peace-time was forgotten - resources were joined. So that on September 3rd, plans - detailed and thorough as far as man's foresight could make them - were ready to be lifted out of a safe.

  Since that day, British railways have laboured unceasingly - and, at times, desperately. For not all things could be foreseen - not Dunkirk, nor the gigantic North African Expedition.

  It is fitting, when the railways are dealing with their greatest task, that tribute should be paid to their work. To do so is not easy, for railways are immensely complicated. To crush them into a sixty minutes framework is impossible. In that time we can give only a glimpse of their efforts - a glimpse of the traffic, the labours, the difficulties that help to form the pattern of the war-time life of - Junction X.

      (The drums of the orchestra begin, softly beating out the V-rhythm of an express train. Gradually the other instruments join in until there is a mighty surge of sound. It suddenly sinks to an urgent background for-)

  SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT [loudly, strongly] : Junction X!

  A radio dramatisation of twelve hours in the life of an important railway centre, a vital cross-roads on the road to victory. The programme is written and produced by Cecil McGivern. With incidental music composed and conducted by George Walter . . .

J U N C T I O N     X !

      (The music swells to a thunderous climax and then begins gradually to fade away behind the speech.)

NARRATOR [simply and sincerely] : I should like all of you listening now to close your eyes, and in imagination to look for a few moments over the darkened surface of these Islands---

THE LISTENER [angrily interrupting] : Oh, for God's sake, man!

NARRATOR [gently] : Sir?

THE LISTENER : Yes. Your silly play-acting! Close your eyes! In imagination! There's a blitz on down here. And my imagination's travelling only in one direction.

NARRATOR : I sympathise with you - I'm sorry if I irritated you. . . . There's a blitz on, is there? What can you hear?

THE LISTENER [tensely] : Guns - bombs - aircraft - fire-engines - ambulance-bells - a corner of hell.

(The music has gone. In its place is the frightening din of an air-raid. The Narrator and the Listener listen to it for a moment.)

NARRATOR : Yes, I sympathise. . . . Can you hear anything else?

THE LISTENER : Isn't that enough?

NARRATOR : There is something else. Let's take away some of the noise - take away the bombs and aircraft--

(They are taken away.)

Hear anything else now? . . . No? Then cut out the explosions and the bells and the crash of buildings.

(Only the sound of gunfire is left, splitting the air with noise. Then - suddenly - between two salvoes, is heard the distant familiar whistle of a shunting engine.)

THE LISTENER [softly] : A railway engine. . . .

NARRATOR : A railway engine. Concentrate on it. Forget the rest. . . .

(The blitz noises are gone. The Listener hears only the distant, perky toot-toot - and after a moment the clank-clank of shunted waggons. It is held for a few moments as a soft background.)

NARRATOR : A shunting-engine. Clanking trucks. . . . Comforting in a blitz, isn't it?

THE LISTENER [slowly] : Yes . . . it is.

NARRATOR : They won't stop because of a blitz. Unless a bomb hits them. And then others will take their place. . . .

(Again, for a moment, only the musical clank-clank-clank of the buffers is heard. It fades to silence.)

That noise hasn't stopped for nearly five years . . . not for one minute . . . it mustn't, you see. . . . Well, it's eased your nerves, hasn't it? Brought back a feeling of normality. Can you keep the blitz in the back of your minds? And join the rest of us in our - play-acting?

THE LISTENER [rather grudgingly] : I'll try.

(The music begins again - low, quiet, peaceful - painting in softly the night scene.)

NARRATOR : Darkness over Britain. . . .   But things to be seen in that darkness if you look widely and carefully enough. . . .   The glint of rails - dull silver. . . .   Hanging in the sky, coloured lights - the red and green and yellow of signals. . . .   A sudden gush of red-hot ash from an engine smoke-stack. . . .   a melting feather of pink tinged smoke . . . the soft pools of light from the tall light-standards of a marshalling yard . . . a pin-point of light, now red, now green, swinging in the hand of an invisible shunter . . . the sudden, startling flash from an electric train . . . the small jets of light as doors are opened and quickly shut, doors of signal boxes, of warehouses, of yardmen's huts . . . tiny hints in coloured light of the vast network that covers these Islands . . . tiny hints of immense, unceasing labour. . . .

(The music changes, ascending, as if lifting part of the darkness. There is a hint of a recurring rhythm in it. Night is giving place to dawn.)

Dawn . . . The points and flashes of coloured lights are vanishing . . . and out of the shadows emerge movement and solid shapes. . . . The dim outlines of passenger trains, moving from station to station. . . . Fast expresses, hurtling over the length and breadth of the land. . . . But there are squatter shapes, of slower movement . . . freight trains, line and line of them . . . no section empty of them . . . often no space between them . . . engine to guard's van, head to tail, four, five, six in a long, slowly moving column . . . waggons - in hundreds, in blocks . . . surging slowly on . . . stopping only when no room can be found for them, when sections are blocked and relief for them is for a time impossible to devise . . . waggons . . . one million of them loaded every week . . . filling marshallin gyards - waiting for space on already congested lines - spilling onto passenger lines - pouring loaded into docks - pouring loaded out of docks, running alongside ships, alongside factories, sheets pulled taut over guns and tanks, bombs and shells, over boots, machinery, food . . . waggons whose loads cannot be sheeted - tractors, landing-barges, lorries, crated aircraft . . . waggons carrying closely guarded secrets.
  And snaking in and out of them and alongside them, the priority specials, the troop trains. . . . And watching them, and tending them, many thousands of men and women, whose lips continuously mouth three words - "Keep them moving." . . . Keep them moving. . . . There is the problem, the never-ceasing headache.

(The music again changes - becoming brisker, more rhythmic. Over it, the voice of the Narrator is also louder and quicker. The quiet mood of night has disappeared.)

Full light now. . . . The movement becomes clearer, less haphazard. It concentrates round key points. . . . Each key point like a spider at the centre of an enormous, complicated web. . . . And below us is one of those points, where trains and trucks are thicker in numbers, where the lines fan out into a wider stretch, a crazy criss-cross, where signal-lamps hang in bewildering groups, where there are workshops and sheds and workers, platforms and porters, trains and travellers. . . . This is Junction X.

(The music ends, leaving the mixed din of a busy main-line station - the blowing of whistles, the hissing of steam, the rattle of barrows, instructions from a loudspeaker, the banging of doors.)

Junction X. 8.30 a.m. The morning rush hour. Recognise it, Mr. Listener? What does Junction X mean to you?

(Out of the background emerges music - satirical - playing a dance for puppets. It covers the station noises and is a rhythmic background for this example of early morning platform chat.)

FRIEND : Good morning, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Good morning, Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : Cold, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Very, Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : She's late, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Yes, she's late, Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : Getting worse, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Getting worse, Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : Here she is, Mr. Smith!
THE LISTENER : No - it's goods, Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : They don't care, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Not a dam', Mr. Brown.
FRIEND : Hear the news, Mr. Smith?
THE LISTENER : Nothing fresh, Mr. Brown.

FRIEND : Here she is, Mr. Smith!			(The brass of the orchestra
THE LISTENER : No, it's not, Mr. Brown.			blares like a hundred bar-
WOMAN PORTER : Mind your backs!			row horns and the voices of
2ND WOMAN PORTER : Watch your corns!			the women porters are a
WOMAN PORTER : Make way!			strident ruffling of
2ND WOMAN PORTER : Look out!			morning nerves.)

FRIEND : Life is hell, Mr. Smith.
THE LISTENER : Life is hell, Mr. Brown.
(And the music finishes.)
NARRATOR : Well! Well!
THE LISTENER [defensively] : Well - the dam' train's always late.
NARRATOR : Junction X! One and a half miles of it! And all it means is a morning grumble. Look! See that staircase? Ever noticed it before?
THE LISTENER : No - can't say I have.
NARRATOR : Come on - we're going up.