Old Lad

I am about to go on another train journey. I love trains and railway stations. Before you jump to conclusions I am not a train spotter. You will not find me at the end of platform 4 in Carlisle with my camera and thermos flask. I just like travelling by train. Now that I am an Old Lad I find driving long distances, and long car journeys difficult. I think the love affair with trains started when I was a young child in the Fifties. We lived in a small town in what is now Greater Manchester, and to visit my Grandmother in Cumberland, we took the train to Carlisle and then down the West Coast. It was always an exciting adventure. The 9.45 am train left Manchester Victoria and was always pulled by what to me was a massive steam engine – a child’s dream! The carriages had individual compartments ( remember those) and an added treat was being taken to the dining car for a toasted tea cake ( in those days the dining car was open to second class ticket holders). The train stopped in Preston for about 20 minutes and there was always a frisson of excitement when my Dad, who was a smoker, stepped on to the platform for a cigarette, and my brother and I worried that the train would leave without him! Going over Shap summit a second steam engine was put on the back of the train to help it over the gradient.

As I grew older it was still possible to travel to lots of places by train until the Beeching vandalism in the mid sixties. After that it was mainly buses and cars although the excuse to travel on a train never went away. In the early sixties I was at a grammar school in Bolton and joy of joys the extensive school grounds were bisected by a railway line. We were of course forbidden to trespass on the line but that did not stop some foolhardy pupils sliding down the embankment, placing a coin on the line and then retrieving it after a train had passed and finding it was twice its normal size!

When I was working as a GP I found myself at one point in my career having to regularly travel to London for meetings, and joy of joys was able to use the night sleeper from Carlisle to London Euston. At that time the sleeper train left Glasgow and picked sleeping car carriages at various points on the West Coast main line. So this meant I could board a sleeping coach in Carlisle at about 10pm and usually be asleep when it was coupled up. Sleepers always had nice crisply laundered sheets and pillows, and there was a very civilised wake up at about 6.45 when the steward knocked on the door with a pot of tea and a biscuit. It was an efficient way of working because the trip to London only took a day away from my practice. A shower and a full English breakfast at Euston set you up for the day! It’s a great shame the same sleeper service no longer runs from Carlisle – it still runs from Glasgow but I could only board at 1.30am, which rather defeats the object of the exercise.

So now I have a Senior Rail Card. I know there are lots of grumbles about the efficiency of our rail system but, maybe I have been lucky, but there have been very few instances when my journey hasn’t gone smoothly. So I still have pleasurable anticipation when setting out and the relaxation of watching the countryside slip by – especially pleasurable when the line runs parallel to a motorway and you can imagine the grim horror of motorway driving! And you often meet some interesting people on trains, and, if you are like me an avid eavesdropper, hearing some interesting conversations! My last journey sitting behind a group of 4 ladies from Glasgow travelling to London was particularly memorable! I was quite disappointed I had to change trains at Preston!

So if you are an Oldie and want to travel in a relaxed way, buy a Senior Rail Card and let the train take the strain.