Outbound

By Maxim Griffin.

A mission to elsewhere – beyond Doncaster – a day of trains – good – you can read and draw and watch the world go by – heading west means Grimsby first – half-six on a Saturday morning that promises to be the hottest of the year – Grimsby looks shell-shocked – the debris of Friday night still fresh on the street – the model shop has gone, the library is derelict – coffee and a sausage muffin from the golden arches fortifies you enough for the journey ahead – you zip into the station and make your way to Platform 2 and the train duly arrives – a hen party make their way on board the train having started early in the Spoons across the station car park – most of the seats are reserved – rather than going through the kerfuffle of changing seats when the pointed passenger arrives, you lean by the doors, arm wrapped around a bright yellow handrail that goes from ceiling to floor – the train starts to move, the hen party cheer – off we go.

Through the glass
The view is better from the doors anyway – you wobble with the trundling motion – the hidden reverse of Grimsby and its satellites reveals itself – the backs of houses, wasteland, the backs of factories – you note the number of trampolines and flags on display – an old chap watering his garden raises a hand as the train passes – the ticket fella comes along and people fumble with their telephones – tickets are largely digital – this slows the ticket collection process – meanwhile, Grimsby turns into open fields, the towers and cranes of Immingham a couple of miles to the north – the train stops at Harborough – a handful of people get on – an 18-year-old and his dad, a young woman with a brace of children, two bald gentlemen, each carrying heavy looking carrier bags – the two bald gentlemen sit where they please and from their bags produce ice cold cans of continental-style lager – the bald gentlemen sigh with refreshment – travelling by rail has always had a strange relationship with alcohol – a bag of cans is an acceptable breakfast, no one bats an eyelid at a hen party on an 8am prosecco high; indeed, some of the busiest bars you will find anywhere are at train stations – you’ve got work to do though and are sticking to water.

Northern Lincolnshire rolls along – its narrative seen through glass – your hand wrapped around the yellow rail – off to the south you spy Pelham’s Pillar in the million tree forests of the Yarbrough estate – an Earl’s monument to his own achievements – there’s a Triumphal Arch out there too but you cannot see it from the train – your eyes move quick, checking every available detail – big fields, wheat, woods, wildflowers, a tract of poppies, several deer, a track, a road, a compound of static caravans, one horse, one turbine gives birth to several giant ones, a quarry of chalk – at Barnetby, the train stops again – doors open – you can feel the heat of the day rising – no-one gets on and no-one gets off – a gentlemen stands on the platform taking notes in a well-worn jotter pad – nice to have a hobby – the doors do not close, the train does not move on – five minutes pass – the growing impatience is palpable, people have connections to make – the doors hiss closed and as the train begins again there is a quiet cheer – several cans are popped open.

Views from the track
The landscape is opening out – bigger sky, bigger fields, bigger pictures – the spirit level flatness of a territory nearing big rivers – you turn to look north – the two towers of the Humber Bridge shimmy in the heat haze – Yorkshire beyond – looks as though there’s a storm brewing that way – high clouds building to the point of collapse – beside the train is a waterway you cannot name, people are out fishing beneath umbrellas for shade – good – the bald gentlemen are deep in their third cans – beyond the glass, a great phalanx of pylons comes into view – an avenue of electricity north to south and across the rippling horizon – no clouds, just sun – a ruined barn and a bonfire, smoke twisting as the train shuffles on – we are approaching Scunthorpe – embankments, Scots pine – gravel heaps and spoil mounds – the landscape becoming heavy with industry – ironstone quarries with ominous pools, cold war freight trains gathering wildflowers and graffiti, brick sheds on the periphery of the works out of the foreman’s sight – chimneys and distant furnaces – when the train comes through here at night the view is Blakean – all fire and ash – the train slows – this is an opportunity to get a good look at the flora that thrives in the railside debris – very much an unofficial nature reserve – huge buddleia in purple with a great many butterflies – poppies, of course, in red, yellow and orange – self-seeded wheat growing out of disused wagons – life finding a way – you spot falcons on the thermals – the hunting here must be extraordinary.

The steelworks turn into warehouses that turn into acres of municipal housing – brick red council architecture with trampolines and flags – the train slows to walking pace as it approaches the station – another platoon of hen party people spill on board letting the heat in with them – must be 25 already – you check the time – nearly nine – an older couple argue as to whether they get off at Sheffield or Meadowhall – an overheating child is given a crimson drink – the bald gentlemen have vanished – evaporated maybe, perhaps it’s the Rapture – the train grinds on – you never see Scunthorpe proper from this angle – an industrial estate of lockups and bindweed turns into fields quite suddenly – you wrap your arm around the yellow handrail – the two hen parties are forming an alliance and the bar staff of Manchester should be forewarned – a small bridge of iron – a bridge of iron – a bigger bridge of iron – look – the Trent nearing the Humber – big rivers meeting – the journey continues from Lincolnshire into Yorkshire – Yorkshire then elsewhere – someone pops a can open.

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