UnionVersity

A to B

Glen Wilson

I cannot drive. This is something which surprises many people, particularly those who I meet in my taxi. Before you judge me may I add that my dad cannot drive and his dad could not drive either, so its not down to laziness, its a legacy. As a result, despite being in my mid twenties, I have amassed more train miles than your average London Midland driver. I think that was satire by the way, but if you couldn’t tell who am I to impose it on you? I digress. My point is; I’m a slave to the rails.

 
There are two myths about train travel in this country we call You Kay. The first is that the trains are rubbish. Not true. We are actually served by one of the most extensive rail networks in the world. But if you listen to your average Brit then trains are always late and if not late then cancelled and when they do turn up they are always overcrowded. Not true. Most of the time people simply have unreasonable expectations, if your average customer’s natural reaction to the announcement of a fatality on the line is to sigh and look at their watch then you know its going to be tough to please.

 
Though the high demands may be set up by the second myth; that train travel is romantic. The nature of train travel has changed dramatically, where once it was farewell embraces on smoke cloaked platforms now alas the nearest you’ll get to romance is a teenage couple necking against the luggage rack while one of their guffawing mates films it on their mobile. Oscar Wilde once penned the line “One should always have something sensational to read in the train”, the success of the ‘Metro’ has considerably dispelled that ideal.
That aging varnished idea of train travel being romantic has also spawned television programmes such as Great Railway Journeys. The problem with this show when it aired in the 1980s and 90s was that whilst the railway journeys were certainly great, they were just far too obscure. From Ulan Bator to Pyongyang with Clive Anderson. Brian Blessed travels from Tbilsi to Tehran. Real train travel is much removed from this. So Unionversity has enlisted me to tell you how it is; no more La Paz to Montevideo with Cleo Rocos, from now on its much more Loughborough to Mansfield Woodhouse.

 
Trains don’t irritate me, people do. That will probably become apparent as we move on. I’ve moved quickly to defend the rail network in this prologue, but I won’t move as quickly to defend people. Frankly there are a hell of a lot of oddballs out there and the oddest and ballsiest of the lot usually travel by train, and sit somewhere near me. If you’re lamenting the loss of Big Brother and don’t know where you’ll get your fix of socially inept opposites and attention seeking annoyances crammed into a relentlessly small space then I suggest you take a train sometime soon. Who needs 93 days of tasks and phone-ins when it’s all there in front of you in a twenty-five minute journey from Newark Castle to Lincoln Central. These aren’t Great Railway Journeys, they are Grating Railway Journeys. All aboard.

More from Glen can be found at http://finalthird.wordpress.com/

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