Life on the slow line
THERE has always been an emphasis on ‘Fastest, newest, best’ within the railway industry. But the vast underbelly of train services can prove fairly ordinary, and some can even verge on – well, let us admit it – being tedious. So I have trawled through my notebooks and selected some of the journeys I have made which are long, slow and littered with stops – then ranked them to discover which is my personal ‘unfavourite’.
The results are listed in the accompanying table. I should say first that any accusation of scientific method will be strenuously denied. There have been very few criteria applied to the selection made, and no doubt every reader will have their own contenders, so let us hear your recommendations for the ‘RE Tedious List’.
One of the limits that has been applied is that an average speed of more than 40mph has been judged as creating insufficient boredom for inclusion. For some unaccountable reason, I find Inverness to Aberdeen unattractive. Its 108mile, 151min journey has only nine stops, 12miles and 16.8min apart – but the average speed is 43mph, so I will have toSettle & Carlisle just escapes too, coming in at 40.4mph for the early morning Leeds-Carlisle departure.
