If you have been reading this blog, or indeed certain of my stories, for any length of time, you’ll have realised that I bloody love trains. Honestly, it’s surprising that I’ve only published one railway-themed story in my career so far. That does not, of course, mean I’ve only written one such story (Great Martian Railways II, you’ll come out some day…), and by happy coincidence I managed to start a train scene in one of my current WIPs just in time to be on a three-hour train today.

Also I’ve been reading a lot about the rapidly disappearing world of sleeper trains lately (thank you, Andrew Martin’s Night Trains), so that’s probably why they’re on my mind so much.

There’s just something about train travel that feels more like travelling than any other mode of transport. Planes are faster, but once you’re up you’re just in a metal tube with nothing to look at but sky, or a landscape so abstracted by height that while it’s beautiful it doesn’t have the same impact as seeing the trees and fields rush by the window. Cars have that advantage too, but the fact that you will inevitably spend most of the journey looking at other cars or just the road is much less appealing – and these days, as a theoretical adult, I am often the driver and thus forced to actively contribute with too much concentration to appreciate the act of travel. In a car you are deciding where you’re going, all the time, whether it’s into the next lane or down a different road.

But though so many of its branches may have closed, the British railway network still runs through a beautiful countryside, silver wires shot through green. One minute I’m embraced by the steep sides of a cutting, trees looming overhead in what’s practically a natural tunnel – the next, the earth falls away and it’s rolling fields as far as the eye can see. And there are pockets of the artificial too, of course, but apart from those moments when one pulls into a station or through its accompanying town, they are distant things, parts of the background. A looming power station chimney or a forest of wind turbines might be man-made, but from the window of a train rushing past they’re just as much landscape as the trees that grow alongside them. Even the graffiti on the parked freight trains is a thing of beauty, splashes of bright colour against the green. For this is still a green and pleasant land, for the most part, as much as it’s easy to forget it.

And from a comfortable enough seat, even facing backwards as I am now while typing this, you are at once isolated from the outside (and yes, a train is just a different form of metal tube to a plane but it’s so much nicer) and part of it, close enough to touch the landscape but far enough away to see so much of it passing by. The wheels jolt on the rails beneath you, the motors whine – there is a sense of motion, a knowledge that you are being conveyed, not simply sitting down in one place and standing up in another – but nor do you have to constantly consider that destination and how to get there, as when driving. You can sit back and read a book, or eat, or just watch the world go by. It’s not the far superior chugging and chuffing of steam but it’ll do. A plane is too abstract, too smooth; a car is too involved, too small; a train is just right.

And by now I have watched a fair bit of world go by, or at least a fair bit of Britain; I have entered Wales, where the valleys are greener and the sheep are rounder. I have a while to go yet, in sufficient comfort I’m sure. (Well, it is Transport For Wales on my next leg, but at least it’s not Arriva anymore. I still have flashbacks.) I’m not going to be there instantly. I don’t want to be. I’m not at the wheel myself and nor am I crammed into a flying box, with endless admin to do at either end. I’m in a seat, with a tiny table thing, and a book, and a view. The rails hum beneath me; other conversations hum around me. The world passes by me.

This is the only way to travel.