Tamworth

I drove to Burton-on-Trent station. I found it perched on top of a hump-back bridge. It looked like someone’s fairly substantial brick-built shed. I had seen online that there was a station car park, but where was it? It was not visible from the station. Limited parking either side of the hut appeared to be for staff only. There was just one space prominently marked out for a person in possession of a disabled sticker for their car. I wandered off past plenty of dowdy, closed-down former shops and tried to extricate myself from one-way streets and bus-only lanes in search of some on-street parking within comfortable walking distance of the station for someone with two bad knees and a bad back but no disabled sticker.

The train, a now ubiquitous Class 170 unit, was too busy for comfort so I stood next to the door for the 11-minute journey on the 11.21 to Tamworth, at a cost of £5.00 with a railcard. The lady opposite had the same idea for keeping her distance. She commented on the sunshine, contrasting it with the last two unremittingly heavy grey days that had preceded it – the weather that had prompted Bill Bryson to once compare being in Britain to living in a Tupperware box.

“I’m changing at the next stop”, she offered, adding, “I avoid Birmingham at all costs”. I wondered what Birmingham might have done to upset her, but am not tempted to ask. Maybe she just doesn’t like crowded, narrow, sub-terranean platforms with an uncomfortably low roof, in which case I think she had a point. Her distaste for Birmingham meant that she was travelling from Burton to Northampton, via Tamworth and Rugby. I fought for a moment with my mental map of the Midland railway network, before concluding that that was probably a logical solution, and that perhaps Birmingham shouldn’t even have been part of the equation in the first place.

I got off at the next stop, too, and made my way downstairs to the down platform on the West Coast Main Line. I stood at the London end with the sun on my back and decided it was warm enough to do without a hat and chose vitamin D instead. There were three young spotters sharing the space with me. Directly behind us all was the famous old patch, where spotters just like them had stood and watched as we were now doing, some sixty years ago and probably many more. What struck me most, apart from their undoubted enthusiasm, was their depth of knowledge about the current system. I was marginalised to the fringes of the conversation in no time. They are managing very well without me and I thought I’d only embarrass myself if I got something wrong, so I just let them get on with it and wandered off.

Tamworth station is awful, aesthetically. I was unable to find any redeeming features. The platforms are narrow and you are only allowed to walk on an even thinner strip on the landward side of the bold yellow line, lest you are swept away to your doom by the turbulence caused by a fast train. The buildings are in the form of a series of boxes - lifts, stairs, waiting rooms and concourse. I went outside but could not find an elevated position of safety to try to take a photo of its best side. It doesn’t have one. The main entrance has a corrugated iron roof, pitched at a shallow angle, that makes it look like a factory unit.

Pendolinos, some with very colourful paint schemes, whizzed by, north and south, and an elderly preserved Class 86 made its way from Lichfield to Rugby, between rail tours. Local services on the WCML were provided by London Northwestern Railway Class 350s, including No. 350253 heading south from Crewe. I had soon had enough of modern Tamworth. The train back to Burton was also sufficiently well used for me to feel obliged to stand next to the door again. I reached my car, parked between the bolted doors of the town hall and an imposing church, opposite. Two men were standing at the road side, one on each side of the corner, as I crossed. “What are you doing over there, Dave? He shouted. “Standing in the sun, keeping warm”, replied the man carrying one of those very flimsy looking blue plastic bags with not much in it. I got the impression that standing around and avoiding the shadows, or maybe mooching around Burton’s streets was something they were fairly used to doing. Eight degrees, a light breeze and bright sunshine in mid-January was not to be sniffed at, as I’d already discovered. As I finally dropped down into the shallow valley in which our village snugly sits, with no derelict factories or boarded up shops, I was reminded how lucky I am to live here. I can feed myself as I wish, don’t have to worry too much about increasing energy bills, and I’m still able to waltz around the country like this amusing myself, on a whim. When it clouded over later in the same afternoon, I wondered what Dave and his mate might be doing next, now that the sun had gone in.