Greater Northern
i thought it was the orient express of the underground
I like a journey, less of the 60 days of fitness to a better self, I haven’t got enough self care to get through that and the routine is too much, but an IRL journey through places is quite fun, and boarding specific transport I thoroughly enjoy. For example, every time I hear a plane or helicopter, I have a minute of silence where I stare up and watch it pass. I don’t cry, but I have a steady smile and may tear up. I am not sure why I do it, but I do. Whenever I leave London Bridge specifically, I also take a breath and tear up for no apparent reason. I haven’t gotten sick of it in two years, so that’s weird.
I thought it was the Orient Express of the underground.
I like a journey, not the “60 days of fitness to a better self” kind. I haven’t got enough self care to get through that, and the routine is too much. But an IRL journey through places is quite fun, and boarding specific transport I thoroughly enjoy. For example, every time I hear a plane or helicopter, I have a minute of silence where I stare up and watch it pass. I don’t cry, but I’ll have a steady smile and maybe tear up. I’m not sure why I do it, but I do. And whenever I leave London Bridge specifically, I also take a breath and tear up for no apparent reason. I haven’t gotten sick of it in two years, so that’s weird.
When a new opportunity opens itself up, I often jump in headfirst without doing any research whatsoever. I leave it up to my mind to find all the missing pieces in a very unfilled library, my imagination. Rooting around in there, you won’t find any facts, but you will find so many random pieces of information that you could make a ridiculous number of conclusions to whatever question you had in your pocket or your mind or whatever reason you were in my mind to begin with. I often over imagine and really boost my perception of the place, and I’ll say 9 times out of 10 I’m thoroughly disappointed. It’s always a wonderful experience, but in my mind, the first trip to the airport I was imagining a vertical lift off like a rocket. Or the time I went to see a panto when I was really young, I imagined the Colosseum back in its prime and a live giant, it was Jack and the Beanstalk. That was genuinely a stab in the heart. But I’ve never learnt. I just live in bliss. The idea is often better than the reality. Not a sad bit, just the context before this story begins.
Whenever I hear a helicopter, I will press my face up against the nearest window to spot it, and when it’s a cloudy day, I get genuinely sad when I can’t see the bloody helicopter. I love transport. It gets people moving like Couch to 5K, but without any of the exercise and most of the time without the sweat.
I’ve taken the Northern line daily for almost two years, and every day I notice National Rail leaves the same station I get off at. And I know National Rail, as I get it every day before the tube, but I had never known it to go underground unless it was City Thameslink, which to me is a waste of a station. National Rail is more prestige than a tube, taken by those who choose a life of comfort, space, and countryside. Cheaper than the capital but with a lot less going on. So one very average Saturday lunchtime, I decided to get the Great Northern line and experience a Harry Potter level of magic.
I took the very long walk from the entrance through tunnels, stairs, and more tunnels until I reached the stairway to heaven, the platform. The platform was wider than a tube one and more vintage. I stood there, and because I thought this was the alpha of the tube network, I was expecting them to be frequent, one every minute or two. Or would this level of luxury result in one every hour because it was so above everything else? You weren’t waiting for the train, the train was waiting for you. It wasn’t you doing a favour for the tube, the tube was there for you. So I looked up, and it was every 15 minutes, so inadequate. It’s not fast and not long enough for me to feel like I should wait. The psychology behind that could fill an afternoon of boredom.
A minute to go. I had never been so excited for this intense beauty of a train that was going places I hadn’t even looked up. I honestly didn’t know where I’d get off. I hadn’t planned that far. I thought I might just succumb to the pure beauty of the train and turn into petals and fly away into summer like the ending scene of Hocus Pocus 2.
I heard it over the speaker as it pulled through the tunnel. My heart sank faster than the Titanic. It was a FUCKING THAMESLINK TRAIN WITH GREAT NORTHERN WRITTEN ON IT. WTF.
I felt more betrayed than the time the bus that said it wasn’t in service stopped and let people on, and as it drove away it changed to the 405 and I could feel the driver laughing in my face.
The train stopped and I got on. I sat in a seat. There was no champagne to greet me or a plate of sandwiches cut on a diagonal. Absolutely nothing to prove my brain right. Not even legroom was given to me. Ultimate sadness. I sat on this train for 40 minutes and got off at some stop, and to clear my head I ran back into London, which took me quite a while in jeans and a shirt. Someone might have thought I’d left something on a bus and was chasing that bugger down, or that I was so late to a very important meeting. Rather than taking a train or a tube, I wanted to run the full 5 miles, and when the client asked for a glass of water, I could just drain my shirt in the room and hand it to them. That’s the confidence I would like to aim for in my life, and luckily, I’m not there yet.
That was a ginormous disappointment.