On the Slow Train by Michael Williams Read Free Book Online

the Midland Railway itself. Was it enough to compensate for such human sacrifice in the cause of a commercial enterprise? Mr Allport and the members of the Midland board clearly thought it was.
    TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO THROUGH ACCIDENTS LOST THEIR LIVES, IN CONSTRUCTING THE RAILWAY WORKS, BETWEEN SETTLE, AND DENT HEAD. THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED AT THE JOINT EXPENSE, OF THEIR FELLOW WORKMEN AND THE MIDLAND RAILWAY COMPANY 1869 TO 1876
    Darkness is gently falling as I get back in the train, which rattles down the gradients towards kinder country and eventually civilisation. But there are still sights, though less dramatic, to be seen, including the magnificent wrought-iron canopy at Hellifield station, the longest of its kind in Britain. Delicately set in the spandrels, heraldic wyverns, symbol of the Midland Railway, stand guard over the deserted platforms of this once-busy junction. Settle station, gateway to the Dales, by contrast is packed, and the train is suddenly filled with rucksacks, sweat and hiking boots. We have now left the Ribble Valley, and the train follows the River Aire all the way to Leeds, past Ilkley Moor, stopping briefly at Keighley, junction for the Keighley and Worth Valley preserved line, which in the summer dispatches tourist hordes to Haworth (alight here for the Brontë parsonage). It was on this little railway that Jenny Agutter once waved the red flag in that iconic film
The Railway Children
. Now we are sandwiched between electric commuter trains as we run into the Leeds/Bradford suburbs past the restored mohair and alpaca mills of Titus Salt’s model working-class community of Saltaire, now home to the aspirational young middle classes of West Yorkshire.
    Arrival in Leeds could not be more of an anticlimax. In few places in the world is such a heroic journey concluded in such modest style. The driver switches off the engine, slings his bag over his shoulder and vanishes into the crowd of home-going commuters. Even as recently as the 1960s our train would have been striding ahead on its next leg to St Pancras. Maybe it would have been a famous named express like the Thames–Clyde Express or the Waverley. Quite likely it would have had a sturdy Royal Scot Class steam loco, all brass and Brunswick-green paint, proudly on the front. (No. 46117,
Welsh Guardsman,
from Leeds Holbeck shed, was a favourite on this run.) White-coated stewards would be turning up the lamps and setting out starched tablecloths and silverware for dinner. A glass of champagne would be in prospect, as the aroma of
sole bonne femme
and beef Wellington wafted down from the kitchen car.
    Could it happen again? Only in dreams. But the tough folk of the Friends of the Settle and Carlisle believe that their cherished railway will once again host Anglo-Scottish expresses that will speed all the way between London and Glasgow. They got it right once in the battle with British Rail bureaucrats that halted the closure of the line. And who is to say they are wrong now?

CHAPTER THREE
    THE 10.53 FROM RYDE – THE TUBE TRAIN THAT WENT TO THE SEASIDE
    Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin and Wootton, via Smallbrook Junction
    HERE IS A riddle. I’m on a Tube train. I’m certain it’s a Tube because it’s painted in that comforting red which has been the uniform of London Transport since time began. The motors have that familiar whine and it smells reassuringly of the usual cocktail of dust and grease. As it rattles along, the driver poops that
poop
that is characteristic of all Tube trains and the sliding doors shut with the usual
ker-thud
. Yet there’s something wrong here. Very wrong. (Although, curiously, it doesn’t seem to bother my fellow passengers.) As we rattle along the track, there are views of an ultramarine sea and yachts with billowing sails, and little thatched cottages are strung along the shoreline. Pigs and cows are dotted around the fields. And so far we have only encountered one short tunnel.