Great train journeys of the world

Friday 23 Oct: Oxford to Todmorden (Yorkshire) via Birmingham, Manchester Picadilly, and Manchester Victoria

Definitions in alternate universes

When I booked the ticket for this afternoon’s journey I asked for a forward facing seat, and this was duly marked on my NON-first class ticket. When the train arrived at Oxford station we were told that first class carriages were at the front of the train. So, how come I ended up heading towards Birmingham with my face towards Oxford while seated at the nearer to Birmingham end of the train? (At least it’s internally consistent: going by their usage I was facing the front!)

If I ran the railway

At Birmingham I nearly got on the wrong train: the platform signage said the train was the one I wanted, but the train itself was going somewhere else. In Melbourne you can’t find any signage; in Birmingham it’s wrong. I wonder how many people bound for Manchester ended up in Rowley Regis (or wherever)?

I had a reserved seat for the Birmingham – Manchester Picadilly leg of the journey, but, being 5:30pm on a Friday afternoon, by the time I had found the carriage it was all I could do get in the door to the intercarriage space. There was no way my suitcase and I were going to be able to make it any further into the carriage itself. 1.5 hours is a long time to stand or sit on the floor. So much for my plan to review a paper on the journey. Give me the train to Ballarat any day!

Manchester’s tram/light rail network is undergoing major refurbishment, which makes getting from Picadilly station to Victoria station awkward. Signage was unclear, the bus was on the other side of the road, and there were no pedestrian traffic lights. Made it, though.

Passing parade

I had some time to kill at Manchester Victoria, and on arrival was curious why there were barrows out the front with people selling feather boas and flashy decorations. When I got inside there were scalpers around trying to buy and sell tickets, but I couldn’t work out for what. My first guess was football, but there was a distinct lack of scarves, and there seemed to be more women than men around. Then I noticed a preponderance of pink, including, as a final giveaway, pink hair. Mind you, I couldn’t work out which train they were catching for the concert, but it turns out the arena is actually attached to the station so people weren’t there for the trains at all. There were heels to die by. The guys, not to be outdone, were attired in expensively scruffy t-shirts and jeans. And then there was the occasional outfit which was doubly misnamed: it should not go out since it really did not fit.

And finally

And finally, some five hours after leaving home, I arrived in the town of Todmorden (TODDm’d’n) in Yorkshire (on the border with Lancashire). One of Anne’s DPhil students, Nick, kindly invited me to visit her and her family for the weekend, in a 400 year old stone farmhouse that the passage of time now has located within the town itself. (The town has undergone expansions and contractions with time, from a peak of 25000 in the greater area when it was a local hub of the wool industry at the end of the 1800s, to a present population of 10000.) It should be a good weekend.