The Missed Train

On presence, powerlessness, and the woman who knew what to do

It was a humid evening at the train station, the kind that makes the journey unpleasant and leaves you ready to be at home. Amid the hustle of commuters, I saw two girls walking along the platform. The sober one was doing her best to prop up her friend, who was clearly intoxicated, barely conscious, as they tucked themselves next to a vending machine. The sober girl tried to mask her fear with forced giggles and bravado, attempting to appear confident. Her eyes told a different story of anxiety and concern.

She cradled her friend in her lap with a kind of fierce protectiveness, tucking them both into the corner to create some semblance of safety in a very public space. It is important to understand the nature of the scene. This was less Maciej Dakowicz's Cardiff After Dark, and more Joel Goodman’s New Year's Day 2022, Deansgate, Manchester but with less glitz and more concrete. The girl’s protective embrace, with the now unconscious body resting heavily across her knees, evoked, on the one hand, the quiet and bleak pathos of Fritz Eichenberg’s woodcut of the Pietà and, on the other, the protective curve of her body reflecting Rodin’s Young Mother in the Grotto, a sculpture embedded within his Gates of Hell. There, amidst a vision of torment and judgement, Rodin places this quiet scene of maternal shelter. It is as if to say that even at the threshold of hell, the instinct to protect, to hold, to care does not disappear. That, perhaps, is what these two were doing: clinging to each other with arms that showed fresh signs of self-harm at the gates in a world not far removed from that imagined abyss.

Photo by Hugh Green on Unsplash

Another man, older than me, had also noticed them and began to insert himself into the situation. He hovered like a restless fly: darting into the scene, offering loud concern, then flitting away to other groups on the platform in an effort to draw their attention. Each time he returned, he was swatted away – not physically, but with the defensive vigilance of a mother hen unwilling to yield her ground. The more he persisted, the more agitated he became, his worry tipping into frustration as he realised his inability to fix the situation. Perhaps he didn’t know how else to help, and this flailing performance of concern was the only language he had. And the more he intruded, the more fiercely the girl guarded her friend, folding in on herself, wrapping her body tighter around the one who lay limp across her knees. The tension grew, and soon others on the platform began to notice.

My train approached. It was also the one the man needed. Without coordination or conversation, we both chose to miss it. That silent decision marked a turning point for me. I stepped forward, no longer just an observer. I hesitated for a moment, calculating the cost, not just of a missed train at the end of a long day, but of whether I was about to make things better or worse. Still, I knew I couldn’t walk away, especially with a Salvation Army red shield on my jacket, and knowing that if one of my daughters were in trouble, I’d want someone to stop and help. I called on the station staff, who had until then managed to remain disengaged, and asked them to intervene directly. The girl’s condition wasn’t improving, and the rising tension risked tipping into something unmanageable. It was time to act, even if the outcome remained uncertain. Maybe I should have done so sooner.

Within minutes, five men—myself, the older bystander, two station staff, and a security guard—gathered around these two girls. The intention was concern, but the optics were poor. Five men crowding a vulnerable teenager looking after her unconscious friend. At this point, she looked terrified.

Then a young woman stepped off the train we had just let go. 

I don’t know her name, but she is the hinge and heroine of this story. 

She told us she was a youth worker as she stepped past us, calmly and without drama. As she crouched beside them, her presence changed everything. In a scene weighted with male authority and a regrettable, unspoken threat, the arrival of a woman, someone trained in working with young people, brought a kind of safety none of us could offer. She took control. Speaking softly, listening closely, placing her hand gently on her shoulder, the girl exhaled as if someone had finally seen her. In the quiet exchange that followed, the youth worker mentioned that the girls were from a care home. That detail didn’t explain everything, but it deepened the weight of it all, and sharpened the urgency to respond with care, not control.

That’s when I knew it was time to step back. I turned my attention to the older man and tried to ease his agitation. He was distressed but well-meaning; out of his depth, but he’d cared enough to act. We both knew we weren’t needed anymore.

An ambulance was on its way. The unconscious girl would get the help she needed. The youth worker had made a connection. The sober girl, whose eyes had been flickering with fear just moments before, was now nodding and talking, no longer just performing control but beginning to feel held.

When the next train arrived, I gently ushered the man onto it, reassuring him that we had stayed long enough. He was my focus now. His worry had been genuine, but him leaving well enough alone was the best thing for everyone. The security guard boarded too, quietly reducing the overwhelming presence of men around the girls.

We debriefed informally on the train, just conversational fragments of reflection. One thing we discovered we all had in common, the three men on the train now, was that we were fathers of daughters. That knowledge shaped our motivations for stepping in, even if clumsy and misapplied, and it certainly shaped how we sat with it afterwards. It established a bond between us as men who had shown up, uncertainly perhaps, but who couldn’t walk past. Dads, still processing what we’d witnessed, and quietly grateful that, in the end, it was a woman who had known exactly what to do.

We didn’t save anyone that night. But perhaps that isn’t the only register of grace. There was no resolution, no tidy bow. Just choices to stay. The possibility that presence is sometimes enough. 

A cruciform moment beside a vending machine: two girls, many onlookers, five men, and a woman who knew what to do.