Hey Blog! Last week I took the train on four out of the five days, so that’s what I’ve written about this week!
“Platform 1, for the Home Ed in a Shed Railway Journey to Understanding Train Travel. This service is currently on time, calling at…”
At the start of this journey into the railway, we must go back to the very beginning. The first trains were steam trains, running on a steam engine, in the industrial revolution. This engine used the pressure of boiled steam to push a shaft that turned the wheels, and while they didn’t go as fast as modern trains, they were faster than anything at the time – or HS2 nowadays! At approximately 30mph, this was a new and exiting mode of travel, and though there were accidents, on the whole it was safer, more efficient, and a lot faster – even if it was incredibly polluting, as it was coal-powered, but then they didn’t know that then. A railway craze developed – as it had with the canals, perhaps a century before, steam travel expanded and thousands of miles of track were laid. But unlike the canals, these have outlasted time and automobiles, and are still used today.
In the present day, train travel has come a long way. We have bullet trains in Japan – developed using bioengineering, with the shape of the kingfisher’s beak inspiring the shape of the front of the train to reduce noise pollution. There are Eurostar trains underneath the English Channel – admittedly not the widest stretch of water, but still an immense achievement, since the tunnel met perfectly in the middle. There are Subway, Underground, and Metro trains underneath cities – impressive that there are all these lines, none of which interfere with foundations, underneath thousands of people who walk unthinking over them. Some places have trains which go up mountainsides, some have trains on great viaducts which cross valleys, we have trains under and over the earth, sea and sky.
I live on a little branch line, which once was a major line of the Midland Railway Co. but is no more. The closest station to me was one of only three triangular stations in the country – stations where there are three platforms in a triangle which can go three different ways. In some ways it is slightly annoying that the fast trains do not run through on to Shefield any more as then we could go a lot more places without having to change, but it is nice that it is quiet. Beyond the end of the line are the trails where trains use to run, but now are for walking and biking, not the Iron Horse. We used to take the train almost every day, but through covid and then after we got used to walking places and took a long time to go back to the train. However, we are almost back to normal levels now, so that’s good. Special train journeys we have made include taking the Eurostar to Paris, the Sleeper to Orkney, besides going to London, York, Shefield and other cities, which happens about once a month. I like taking the train, and it is certainly a very pleasant method of transportation – hopefully we will continue to be able to travel for a long time!
“Platform 1, for the Home Ed in a Shed Railway Journey to Understanding Train Travel. This service is delayed, and now expected to depart at…”
Yes, I know!
Rail travel has inspired many a poem or novel: This is the Night Mail is one of my favourite poems, with fantastic rhythm and amusing yet totally believable imagery, and of course the perfect romantic send-off involves a handkerchief waving from a train window as the couple are separated until the rendezvous sometime in the denouement. I have just contributed some little lines to this (pun on rail lines) which I hope you enjoy, and when you next take the train, think of how much this form of travel has influenced the world.
Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum…