THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

TRAINS

There is an English dream of a warm summer evening on a brach-line train.  Just that sentence can make an English person over forty fall silent with the memory of what has now become a golden fantasy of an idealized England: the comfortable dusty coaches rolling through the low woods; the sun gilding the green leaves and striking through the carriage windows; the breeze tickling the hot flowers in the fields; birdsong and the thump of the powerful locomotive; the pleasant creak of the wood paneling on the coach; the mingled smells of fresh grass and coal smoke; and the expectation of being met by someone very dear on the platform of a country station.

Theroux/Kingdom, 1983