An In-Depth History Of The Railways

This is not actually an in-depth history of the railways. As you might have noticed if you spend any time on my website, I have a self-sabotaging habit of often giving my pieces thoroughly unclickbait titles which often only abstractly, at most, describe what they contain (I think of it more as "clickwait"). This is the most lengthy and personal one I've written for a long time. Eightyish percent of it is behind the paywall but I'm not beating myself up for that because we all have to earn a living, I worked sodding hard on it, I have written quite a few free pieces lately, and I want to show my gratitude to the people who kindly support my writing here. If you'd like to become one of those people (and get access to this full piece and my entire archive), you can do so here for a minimum of £20 per year (or £2 per month if you prefer). If not, I still thank you for reading my work, and do rest assured there'll be another free newsletter or two along soon.

I visited York a couple of weeks ago. I had been staying at my parents’ house and decided to take the train. I’m sick of driving, sick of car culture, car anxiety, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how swiftly the train would get me there: 43 minutes. To my mind, back when I used to live in York, in the mid-1990s, my birth county of Nottinghamshire was several whole planets away. This is what happens as the years progress: geographical distance somehow reduces, much like your concept of time. What is Three Months Ago, now? Three Months Ago is the last time I saw a particular close friend, the last time I had a proper meal out, the last time I listened to a favourite record. Three Months Ago is last Wednesday. But the three months I spent living in York, in late 1995, was forever.

I suppose the fact that I had been unhappy couldn’t have helped. Not depressed exactly, just a little lost, with that strange hollow deep-stomach feeling that can often accompany being alone in a completely new place and having a rug of familiar and comforting things you hadn’t previously realised were familiar comforting things pulled from beneath you. That summer had been a good one: the fanzine I’d been editing for the previous two years had been selling well, introducing me to musicians and readers thousands of miles from the provincial, insular place where I lived. Using the money I’d earned from working temporarily in a factory I upped the print quality. The legendary DJ John Peel had called my house to enthuse about the zine, then recommended it on BBC2’s What The Magazines Say. I was convinced, in a quietly, fluffily arrogant way, that if I kept working hard on it I’d get a job reviewing records and gigs for the Melody Maker. But my girlfriend was off to Newcastle University, I didn’t fancy the strain of a long distance relationship, and I was aware that my family wanted me to take advantage of opportunities for a higher education they’d not had. My grades were an archetypal everydosser rattlebag of underachievement: nothing better than a C at GCSE, zero A-levels of any kind, a sort of okayish BTEC National Diploma in a course that could never make its mind up about what it was, but during clearing I enthused my way onto an American Studies degree at what was then called the University of Ripon and York St John. I missed meals so I could afford to buy limited edition lo-fi seven-inch singles. I expanded my knowledge of early 1970s rebel cinema in the library. I made three or four friends. I woke up to the sound of traffic. I wandered around, my head in a far away universe where nothing really meant much unless it involved a guitar that sounded like it had been recorded in a dirty cellar. Surprisingly, I got decent grades for my essays. By Christmas, I was gone.