Connecting the two suburbs was a grey metal railway bridge with its rattling loose planks.
When we saw a train in the distance, we run like mad to stand in the steam. How many times we stood there in the middle of the bridge, aiming and pushing each other for the right spot, to be right above the uncoming locomotive with its spewing steam and smokey chimney.
It was so thick you couldn’t see each other and you felt the warmth.
Completely engulfed we tried our expertise in spitting with a well-directed saliva hit in the black hole of the chimney, however with more misses than hits.
Then often there were long goods-trains with no end in sight it seems. Loudly we started counting, cheering and screaming in order to confuse one and other.
From that bridge the view was quite extensive, with trains running in all directions, the most interesting sight was to the east across the vast railway yard of iron tracks to the big turntable, where the locomotives were turned around. Coal and water were tanked and, with all those activities, the Lombok residents near the yard had good reason to complain about –bad smells, noise and dirt on the washing lines.
But the puffing ‘billy’s’ were not the only culprits. The housewives of Arnhem West were often angry about what came out the chimney of the ink factory, on the Zuidelijke Parallelweg (Southern Parallel Road), the cause of black soot spots on their fresh Persil- washed linen.
Our uncle Gerard (younger brother of Dad) who lived four doors down from us on number 86 was an accountant at that factory.

The big war might have taken all the limelight with the adults but the boys had their own territory to defend and duels to fight. As I said the railwayline divided the Lombok and Heyenoord neighbourhoods.
On the deep overgrown slopes of the ravine we nestled ourselves in our camouflaged huts we had built, facing the other side of the railway tracks. One boy was so lucky to be in possession of a dented German helmet.
When our “general” Cor Heggelman gave a sign, we would discharge a series of pot shots from our catapults towards our hidden enemies on the other side, a distance of perhaps 50 metres. The impact was of course minimal; we had difficulties reaching the opposite berm. A dozen twisting and overgrown paths on the slope made the battlefield an exiting front for a rash attack or a hasty retreat.