THE EAST COAST DRAIN LINE

The sleeper cubicle seemed to have declined somewhat since the last time I had travelled from Edinburgh to London, this being my seventy-ninth such journey since 1988. The cabin seemed even smaller, more cramped, certainly colder, and much less clean than previously. When I started going, all those years ago, £165 bought you a first-class sleeper, first-class return, a meal on the train coming back, and a car parking space at Waverley Station. Now £237 buys you a second-class sleeper, albeit not sharing or snoring with a stranger, and a second-class return the following afternoon. These cabins are two-berth, so they leave the second berth up, even though you have paid for a single occupancy sleeper cabin. It is impossible to sit on the lower bunk without whacking your head on the top one, and it is impossible to sit on the top bunk unless you happen to be Quasimodo. Gone is the handy little hygiene pack they give you full of useful accoutrements such as a shoe-cleaning cloth, a foot-mat to stop your feet developing a verucca from the soiled carpet, a toothbrush, a razor, a cake of soap, all in a nice linen bag. Now you get a folding toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste about the size of one of those little sachets of petrol you used to be able to buy to fill a cigarette lighter, and a tiny box of drinkable water as the stuff that comes out of the taps is probably full of legionnaire’s disease. They even took away the tartan blankets which used to be housed in the overhead rack. As the temperature outside was minus 5, some heat in the cabin would have been useful, but it was a cold as a meat-locker all night. If I hadn’t had my hip-flask of brandy with me, it would have been a grim night indeed. The attendant tapped on the door at 0630 the next morning, even though the train wasn’t due into Euston into 0710. Presumably, he wanted to ‘get off shift’ as soon as he could, whereas I would have appreciated an extra forty minutes’ kip whilst we rumbled through the Buckinghamshire countryside. It was even more galling to be awakened at the crack of dawn to ingest what the Rail Company suggests is an adequate breakfast these days. Until quite recently, the attendant would have handed over a bag containing a proper breakfast and a free ‘Scotsman’: now, almost apologetically, he gave me a cardboard beaker of hot water, a tea-bag and a shortbread biscuit of the size and consistency of a piece of ship’s tack. For the return journey, even though I had booked my ticket weeks ago and had clearly asked the woman for a seat in the quiet coach, facing the direction of travel, on the right-hand side of the carriage, I ended up back to the engine on the left-hand side of the carriage, looking directly into the setting sun, which blinded me till I got to Peterborough, where it mercifully started to grow dark. If I didn’t loathe flying to the point of breaking out in a sweat even thinking about it, I would certainly consider that bovine form of travel, because the rail company (now in public hands so we’re all paying for this twice), seems to be playing fast-and-loose with the service. They have limited regard for passengers, despite their weasel words about looking after their ‘customers’ as they gratingly continue to refer to the travelling public, and the prices are so disgraceful that they should be ashamed of charging them. Of my actual day n London, more anon, but the rail journey, once a blissful experience, jangled my nerves like the keys to the Tower itself.