The Wrong Train

I decided to read The Wrong Train, by Jeremy de Quidt. It starts off with a boy realizing that he has gotten on the wrong train home, and decides to get off at the current platform. But the platform the train stops at is just a dark, foggy slab of stone with one lone bench. As he approaches the bench, he notices a strange old man wearing a thin raincoat with greased tie, holding a gas lantern, along with a small scruffy gray dog on a leash. The man approaches the boy sitting on the bench and sits alongside him. When the boy asks the old man when the next train is coming, the man responds that this “isn’t a train station, it's a Permanent Way Post.” and that he shouldn't have gotten off at this Post; otherwise the man wouldn’t be there.