Happy Sunday Funday,
A return to regularly scheduled programming today, with what I’m sure is a welcome break from the horrors of war you might otherwise get from this series of letters.
I wish I could say the same about my trains back down to London this weekend. My original train, on the newly refreshed direct line from Bradford’s second station down into King’s Cross, was unceremoniously cancelled after - get this - railway signalling cables were stolen down by Stevenage. It’s the scrap value of the copper inside these cables that make them worth stealing, but it was really bloody inconvenient.
That was meant to be an LNER train, but instead I had to get a Grand Central service from Bradford’s primary station, which thankfully was also direct. There’s something to be said for Bradford having two railway stations (hopefully soon to be three when Northern Powerhouse Rail, or whatever they’re calling it these days, finally gets up and running), both with direct links down to the capital, stemming back from it’s Victorian heyday when it was the wool capital of the world.
As an aside, I went for a walk through the old Victorian industrial quarter whilst I was up this weekend, and you can see my pictures from that walk @diningstones on Instagram, if you’re interested.
Now LNER is my preferred train line in Britain. I like the colour scheme, the trains are comfortable and it’s very rare that issues are fatal to your journey (unlike today). I’m such a fan that I actually book all of my train tickets through LNER, given how great their interface is, and since you don’t pay any booking fees vs if you were to book through a Trainline for example.
Grand Central generally feels a little bit more dated (the announcer has just told us that you can find safety information in the saloon, what’s a saloon!?). Their route is also slightly longer (which, let’s be honest, is the main reason I don’t get it) and they have two sets of railway stock. The first is ancient and you can really tell - it’s not a very comfy journey. But, the second is still dated but harks back from a time when trains were made to be comfortable. That’s what I’ve got today, and there’s heaps of leg room, massive windows and intelligently placed power sockets (i.e., next to me by the window!). It is also a more scenic route, and I don’t envy you if you’ve never had the privilege of taking a train through Halifax.
But this train is also delayed! Somehow, it got stuck between the depot and Bradford, which now means it’s running about 20 minutes behind schedule. They also don’t have a designated unreserved carriage (typically carriage C on an LNER train, super if it’s packed and you get on early!). You also can’t reserve a seat on Grand Central after booking the ticket unless you ring them. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m typically not averse to ringing someone, but this feels a bit stuck in the nineties like calling your stock broker. They also won’t deliver your food to your seat, which is inconvenient.
But, I’ll be back in London only 30 minutes after I was meant to, which in the grand scheme of things is a pretty good outcome I think. Then I get to battle this weekend’s Piccadilly line closure as well, how fun!
To continue the positivity of this note, I read a pretty interesting SubStack recently. Unfortunately, I don’t quite know how SubStack works and there doesn’t seem to be a way of looking at what you’ve read. Since I didn’t like it, I can’t dig it out and share here, but I’ll try to convey the general gist of what they said. I tried to get ChatGPT to find it for me, but it turns out every bugger has written something about this.
The main point that I wanted to share was that yes, the world is on fire (both literally and figuratively), and it does feel like things have really turned on a fulcrum since 2020 (happy covid lockdown day for those reading on Monday btw!). But, that is a fact of life that, even with the best will in the world, there’s very little that you can do about it.
Instead, when things are falling apart on a big world level, it’s quite nice and helpful to instead look and focus on the smaller worlds around you. Taking the time to enjoy the quiet moments before and after ordering your coffee on a Sunday morning.
Actually, you know what - sometimes I start writing something, realise I sound like a muppet teaching people to suck eggs and realise that I should probably cut it. This is one of those moments, and you all know that enjoying the small things in life will make you slightly happier without me telling you like it’s a secret formula.
So… I suppose those last four paragraphs have added absolutely nothing to anyone’s life, but hey not everything has to be an exercise in productivity. Instead, hopefully that’s an interesting (bizarre?) insight into my fairly unfiltered mind and I hope the rest of your Sunday is scary-free.
Have a great week ahead!
RH
P.s., I also seem to survived my lack of seat booking without getting moved on on this train, which is another small win for the weekend!