Carly really loves going on train journeys. She lives in London and has for all her life. The big smoke with lots of people and congestion. She really does know how to appreciate her life and see her friends who live all over the United Kingdom. She can hop on a train to rush off at speed through patchwork fields and emerald forests to leave her city. For her this feels the best way to travel. It is freeing and fun and gives you a different perspective. This is even more so abroad. The chaos and excitement of trains in India, the cleanliness and punctuality of trains in Switzerland and her very favourite journey going over gorges in Myanmar (whilst bouncing so high even she nearly hit the ceiling of the train!) And, let me tell you, Carly is not tall. No, actually. She is short and a bit fat. Like many middle-aged women. That tummy bulge just won’t go!
Carly loves the easy effort afforded by train travel. Sitting there. Doing nothing sometimes. Carly isn’t very good at this. She is obsessed with being busy. But on a train, you can daydream as the train purrs along. Of course, sometimes journeys don’t go to plan. You can be stuck in a siding for hours and not be allowed off the train. Then Carly is seething. Don’t these train operatives know how busy and important she is? Clearly not, as they would make exceptions and open a door so Carly can clamber to the nearest station and move on with her day. Never mind the signal failure. Someone else can sort that out and other customers can be inconvenienced, but just not Carly. Then she realises she is just like everyone else. And it will get sorted. She breathes deeply and tries to practice some mindfulness meditation. Poorly to be honest.
But she does wish she didn’t have a watch or a phone to obsessively check the time. She can work out relentlessly how many hours, minutes and even seconds she has been kept waiting. She is impressed with the customer service announcements. They rarely say anything of substance, but they are apologetic and at least sound contrite. They clearly have been on a railway-calming-customers-down course. She wonders how many days long it is? Do they practice announcements? Do they do role play? They often mention how you can claim travel costs back if your journey has been delayed by X minutes. Pach. Really does anyone actually do it? It will be a lot of effort and for a minimal amount of compensation. Certainly, too onerous for people as busy and important as Carly.
Carly has an insatiable appetite for leaving London. Don’t get this wrong. She loves, loves, loves living in the capital. But she needs to be out of London, to not only truly appreciate it, but also, she finds it too easy at home to get embroiled in low level nonsense. When she is away, she finds it so much easier to be truly creative. When she stays put, which she has had to do in times of a pandemic, she feels she is constantly treading on hot coals. If she doesn’t escape soon on a train, she’ll burn her feet. She realises that being on a train and visiting any old friend that will let her stay, grounds her. She can be calm when she knows she has these trips planned.
Carly does try to consider what this train obsession is all about. Well, firstly, she is not keen on driving. She can drive well enough and has access to a car. It is not to appease her eco-warrior friends. No. Driving just isn’t relaxing. Trains are all about that motion. Pshtakoof, pshtakoof. It is those relaxing and repetitive movements that are so very satisfying. It reminds her of her favourite craft - knitting. Similarly, this is very relaxing and repetitive. After all, there are only two stitches. Plain and purl. It is like a chant. The train sounds like someone is reciting a mantra that you can feel all over. Knitting feels like your hands are creating a yarn mantra. For Carly, who is thrilled by change, doing something that is defined by something very repetitive, feels grounding. And of course, when she is on the train she can knit. She usually travels alone so no one interrupts her, and she can listen to one of her favourite podcasts and feel the train throughout her body and the yarn in her hands. How very sublime, she chuckles to herself! Then she feels she is a self-sealed bubble. She loves to try and work out the names of stations that they whizz past. But mostly she is just in a daze. A type of reverie. Trying to be. Rather than trying to do which her default setting. Carly usually bizzes about all day from 5am when she wakes up, until she conks out in the evening.
It is funny that she loves train journeys because of all the stories she used to read to her children Thomas the tank engine was her least favourite. So absolutely dull and tedious. She would save that for babysitters to read to them!
Carly likes to sit facing the rear. This is partly because she likes to be different and alternative. She also feels sorry for the rear-facing seats. She has a bit of a thing for supporting the underdog. But also, it is nice to see where you’ve been. Not looking in the direction of where you are going. It is a sort of philosophical time travel. Which is best? Future or past? She knows she should try harder to be in the here and now, rather than inexorable future planning or relentless unpacking and redistributing of the past. Sometimes she pushes her face up to the window, so her nose touches the glass to clock where she is right at the very moment of ‘now’). Hmmmmmmmmmmm, thinks Carly. Actually, she is being really pretentious. Being in the now is just almost impossible.
Sometimes Carly goes on trains when technically she wasn’t allowed. But Carly isn’t really one for silly rules. It was at the hight of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic when only essential travel was permitted. There were cordons of police at Euston station checking why customers were travelling. Carly would show her badge. She is a doctor of note and distinction. Well sort of. Anyway, having a title and a work badge was enough for her to be waved on into the station. She had a whole long story made up in case the police asked for more details. She was going to say she was visiting a patient in Daventry. This is because she is a world-expert in a rare genetic disorder. This is actually true. It is just her patients live near Reading and really, she didn’t need to visit them at this precise moment in time. But she got onto the train easily. She just needed her NHS badge and no explanation was required. Phew. Another small victory. Carly justifies that she needs to go on that train to improve her mental health with the outcome that she will be a better doctor and mother when she returns. She doesn’t want to have a row with the government about travel. She just needs to leave Euston and head up to the Midlands where her friend has kindly agreed to host her. And as for being a better mother. Really? Who is she kidding? Her kids are all adults and now all the damage has been done. Her parenting journey is nearly over and no visits on trains are going to appease her children of all the mistakes they continually remind her that she has made. Being a better doctor? Maybe. She isn’t sure this trip will change that. She has been qualified for over 30 years and working all the way through the pandemic in a hospital. A bit old now to learn new tricks. But for sure. Better mental health is good all round and going on train journeys is part of her recovery. Recovery? From what? Well just living – especially at the time of the pandemic which Carly thought was really there just to ruin her life. But she isn’t alone there! And really Carly isn’t ill. She just has an insatiable longing to go away. It didn’t matter much where. Her friend Sandra was happy to have her to stay as long as they snuck in through the garden entrance under cover of night. Sandra was happy to cook for Carly and let her stay in her spare room, whilst Carly regaled her with stories to amuse her.
Carly would mostly like to travel in the “quiet carriage” on the train. But she never could understand why others couldn’t follow this rule. She would often point out the signs to others, but often they would laugh at her and make more noise. And then most train companies removed these carriages as it was impossible to police them. So, Carly just had to be more mindful and not listen to the conversation of others. And she could always put on headphones and listen to educational podcasts. Trains have taught Carly lots of things. How to be calm in a crisis, how to plan her time and how to see the change in location and weather. She could count the sheep and cows and horses. This made her relaxed and calm. She loved it when the train ran alongside a motorway. She could see who waswinning. The train or the cars? As Carly is very competitive by nature, she loved it when her train overtook all those polluting cars. That means Carly won in both the environmental realm and being the fastest. Double hit! Yay.
Carly loves trains despite there being no nursery rhymes about them that she remembers. Row, row, row your boat and the wheels on the bus are the only transport ones that spring to mind. But Carly’s memory has always been shocking. If it hadn’t been for the Trainline App she would have no idea where she’d been at all. Luckily, she remembers to look there. And it can help her know where to get on the train, change and get off. She hopes she doesn’t lose her phone. That really would be a disaster. That is pretty much the case for everyone as well.
