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baroque_mongooseWhen I first went to university, there was this wonderful train that went straight through from Glasgow to Harwich, stopping very conveniently at Oxenholme (which was my nearest station, although I lived in Kendal) and Sheffield. Unfortunately, I didn't get to use this excellent train for very long before they axed it, which meant that now I had to change at Manchester Piccadilly. At that point, you really didn't want to do that, because that station was horrible. It was that awkward period between the time when there were porters everywhere who could help you with your luggage and the time when there were plenty of lifts, escalators, and even travelators, so that you didn't need help with your luggage; you might just get a porter if you were very lucky, but mostly you were struggling with a lot of luggage up and down stairs, and heaven help you if you had a bicycle. They did, I hasten to add, do that station up after a while, and now it's one of the best on the network.
So now I had a new routine. I'd go from Oxenholme to Manchester Piccadilly, and change there for Sheffield. Sometimes the Sheffield train would go through New Mills Central (or "Nung Fnertwep", as posted a little while ago), and sometimes it wouldn't, but in all cases you'd get some lovely views over the Pennines, you'd know to put your book or crafts away as the train shot past Grindleford (it very rarely stopped there), and you'd be standing up and gathering your luggage together at Dore. Simple.
Well. Usually.
On this one particular day I caught the train from Oxenholme to Manchester as normal, then the train on to Sheffield as normal... or, at least, so I thought. It was advertised as the Sheffield train, it went from the usual platform, and all seemed to be well for about ten minutes, until I started noticing that we seemed to be going through even grottier bits of Manchester than we usually did. Oh well, I thought. Nothing to worry about. There are a lot of railway tracks in Manchester. We've just been re-routed a bit.
However, the scenery did not become any more familiar, and I soon realised that this was quite the diversion; on the other hand, I also knew that there are only so many ways you can get a train across the Pennines, so we should be back on track soon enough.
Eventually, we stopped at Wakefield (or possibly Halifax; I can't remember which order they came in). That wasn't right. At this point I decided I'd flag down the guard next time I saw him, and ask what was going on. However, it was also at this point that a bloke boarded the train, looked up and down the almost-empty carriage I was sitting in, and clocked the two nuns who were sitting just across the aisle from me. And it turned out that this bloke really admired nuns.
So, of course, he went and sat with the nuns, and told them all about how wonderful he thought they were, to their visible embarrassment; and all the while I was patiently waiting for the guard to show up, these nuns were getting their ears bent at considerable length. The Nun Admirer got off at the next stop, which was probably fortunate, but before doing so he wished to give the saintly sisters a token of his undying admiration; and it was this... thing. I have no idea what it was meant to be. It was a more or less square piece of very slippery knitted nylon, striped in autumnal colours, with long fringes on two opposite ends. And these poor nuns hadn't a clue what to do with it.
There was I, wondering why on earth we were at Halifax (or possibly Wakefield) and where the guard had got to, and these nuns leaned across the aisle and explained that that bloke had very kindly given them, er, this, and they really didn't have a use for it, so would I like it? Well, of course, I felt obliged to take it off their hands, even though I wasn't quite sure what to do with it myself; so I did. And when the train eventually stopped at Doncaster, I thought "that's it, this train is clearly not going to Sheffield, I need to get off here and find one that is". This I did - luggage, bicycle, random nylon object, and all.
Well, I was an impecunious student, so I had a large cardboard box instead of a bedside table (in fact I was, by deliberate parental policy, quite significantly less pecunious even than a regular student), and it occurred to me that I could at any rate throw the random nylon object over it to make it look slightly better. So I did that, and a few months later it needed washing for some reason, so I washed it. Carefully, by hand.
"Carefully, by hand" turned out not to be good enough; all the colours ran dreadfully and the fringes got tangled up. I had to throw it out in the end.
You really never know what's going to happen on trains...
So now I had a new routine. I'd go from Oxenholme to Manchester Piccadilly, and change there for Sheffield. Sometimes the Sheffield train would go through New Mills Central (or "Nung Fnertwep", as posted a little while ago), and sometimes it wouldn't, but in all cases you'd get some lovely views over the Pennines, you'd know to put your book or crafts away as the train shot past Grindleford (it very rarely stopped there), and you'd be standing up and gathering your luggage together at Dore. Simple.
Well. Usually.
On this one particular day I caught the train from Oxenholme to Manchester as normal, then the train on to Sheffield as normal... or, at least, so I thought. It was advertised as the Sheffield train, it went from the usual platform, and all seemed to be well for about ten minutes, until I started noticing that we seemed to be going through even grottier bits of Manchester than we usually did. Oh well, I thought. Nothing to worry about. There are a lot of railway tracks in Manchester. We've just been re-routed a bit.
However, the scenery did not become any more familiar, and I soon realised that this was quite the diversion; on the other hand, I also knew that there are only so many ways you can get a train across the Pennines, so we should be back on track soon enough.
Eventually, we stopped at Wakefield (or possibly Halifax; I can't remember which order they came in). That wasn't right. At this point I decided I'd flag down the guard next time I saw him, and ask what was going on. However, it was also at this point that a bloke boarded the train, looked up and down the almost-empty carriage I was sitting in, and clocked the two nuns who were sitting just across the aisle from me. And it turned out that this bloke really admired nuns.
So, of course, he went and sat with the nuns, and told them all about how wonderful he thought they were, to their visible embarrassment; and all the while I was patiently waiting for the guard to show up, these nuns were getting their ears bent at considerable length. The Nun Admirer got off at the next stop, which was probably fortunate, but before doing so he wished to give the saintly sisters a token of his undying admiration; and it was this... thing. I have no idea what it was meant to be. It was a more or less square piece of very slippery knitted nylon, striped in autumnal colours, with long fringes on two opposite ends. And these poor nuns hadn't a clue what to do with it.
There was I, wondering why on earth we were at Halifax (or possibly Wakefield) and where the guard had got to, and these nuns leaned across the aisle and explained that that bloke had very kindly given them, er, this, and they really didn't have a use for it, so would I like it? Well, of course, I felt obliged to take it off their hands, even though I wasn't quite sure what to do with it myself; so I did. And when the train eventually stopped at Doncaster, I thought "that's it, this train is clearly not going to Sheffield, I need to get off here and find one that is". This I did - luggage, bicycle, random nylon object, and all.
Well, I was an impecunious student, so I had a large cardboard box instead of a bedside table (in fact I was, by deliberate parental policy, quite significantly less pecunious even than a regular student), and it occurred to me that I could at any rate throw the random nylon object over it to make it look slightly better. So I did that, and a few months later it needed washing for some reason, so I washed it. Carefully, by hand.
"Carefully, by hand" turned out not to be good enough; all the colours ran dreadfully and the fringes got tangled up. I had to throw it out in the end.
You really never know what's going to happen on trains...
