Azuma Bike Ride

It was a pleasant afternoon for a spin. I took my bike over to friends at Laxton and we cycled from there down into the valley at Carlton-on-Trent. We were detained at the level crossing next to the Great Northern Inn while two northbound Azumas sped past on the East Coast Main Line, one quickly following behind the other. My phone camera actually did quite a good job of slowing them down sufficiently, so they weren’t just unrecognisable blurs. Sleek, modern, aero-dynamic, bright and fast they certainly are, but I think I have now probably run out of nice things to say about them. Nevertheless, it was kind of my host to include the railway in his circular itinerary with me in mind - and there is always the chance of something other than a unit, I suppose.

How ungrateful, I sound, but visits to the modern railway bring out the same emotions each time. How enthused can I get watching yet another white tube with powerful headlights flash by in the blink of an eye? The familiar paraphernalia of the old railway that we knew and loved has long gone from here – no plate-layers hut, semaphore signals, mechanically operated signal box controlling access to the loop, manually operated level crossing gates and the rest. The railway is sanitised and more remote, even when I’m standing right next to it, so the experience is simultaneously uplifting yet tinged with disappointment.

I should be more grateful. I have my memories and I can relive my experiences of the cosy, fussy, varied, well populated and intimate railway of the past in my head. I still get that same buzz when the railway itself comes into view - any railway, actually, either still operating at full tilt or just crumbling and grass-covered bridge support reminders of what has been lost. It’s just not the same feeling that it used to be, but I’m not inclined to give up on it, either. The die was well and truly cast and my furrow emphatically ploughed, long, long ago.