The East Coast Mainline

Before or after reading this, take a look at 'The Bus to Kribi' or 'This is Not a Journey, This is Suffering', to compare the East Coast Mainline with our experience of public transport in Cameroon.

York railway station is a big place. However, is is well laid out and signposted. Screens in various places tell passengers which platform their train will leave from. Little shops will sell you food or a newspaper. We consult the screens to see our train is due to leave at 10:28. Not 10:27, not 10:29. Not whenever all the seats have been sold.

We bought our tickets weeks in advance and they were posted to us. The tickets tell us of our seat and carriage and signs on the platform tell us where our carriage will arrive. At 10:26, the train pulls in and our carriage is precisely where is is supposed to be. At 10:28, the advertised time, we start moving.

In our designated seats, we are facing another couple. She is reading a newspaper and he has a book. On the other side of the aisle, a man has a pair of Bose headphones. We sit in silence. There are no vendors walking round the train. Strangers are not sharing jokes. It's eerily quiet.

I am reminded of a joke, in which two Irishmen, two Scotsmen and two Englishmen are stranded on a desert island. The Irishmen have an argument about politics and after a year spent fighting, are unable to remember why they disagreed. The Scots built a whiskey still and after a year can't remember very much. The Englishmen spent a year in silence, waiting to be introduced.

We fiddle with our phones and discover this train has wifi. Unwilling to pay for it, we resort to 3G and discover that O2 have not fully discovered the East Coast Mainline.

Outside, sheep and cattle graze. A town is approaching and is zipped through at a hundred miles an hour.

Time for tea. Walking the length of this leviathan of the rails to find the buffet car, I discover an awful lot of people are watching films on laptop PCs or iPads, with headphones. A teacher is marking exam papers. Some students are discussing maths. A Jewish guy is reading the Scriptures, in Hebrew. Some people are staring out the window and the only real noise from anyone is the man snoring in the corner.

At the bar, another lady is being served. "Hello" and smile are all we exchange. Then it's my turn. " Tea please." "Hot chocolate please." My Northern Irish tenner is examined to check it is real money and change is returned. I walk off with a pint of steaming liquids in a purpose-built carry-bag and 200 silent people don't realise they are in danger of being scalded if this train jolts.

Of course, it doesn't jolt. It's so smooth.

Back through the train. The silence continues, interuppted by a giggling toddler who has not yet discovered that children (humans?) are to be seen and not heard.

I sit. Alison takes her drink and thanks me. The nearby eyes are clearly examining what we have but nobody dares speak.