Rich and Strange Aeons

By myself, of course.

As I ype this I'm on the train to Edinburgh. My first long-distance train since taking the San Joaquin/Coast Starlight betwee SF and LA years ago. Possibly my third LD train experience ever, first being Moscow to Estonia and back, not counting anything I did with my parents as an infant. I'm in first class, which comes with free tea or coffee and biscuit (cookie; "dunking bar" in this case, and it was indeed rather more edible once dunked in coffee). I've got a power outlet too. Wi-Fi is supposed to be through the whole train, though it requires registration and is rather slow in any event... of course, in saying that I'm rather discounting the miracle of wireless connection at all on a moving train between cities. Cell service doesn't make it, though.

( Huh, a few hours of random notes and thoughts gets long )

Finally made York, 15:43. More people! First Class is almost getting crowded. Well, non-empty. Nice big station too, semi-enclosed, high roof. Some of the other trains are rather colorful. Giant array of bicycles. Rather small array of parked motorcycles, like half a dozen.

Someone just got told he needs a reservation to get on the train... the machine gave me two cards when I checked in, a ticket proper and a seat reservation, needed both apparently. (Well, three cards, but I didn't have to show the receipt.)

Ooh, I get a glimpse of standard by looking across into an opposite-direction train. Rather more full.

Leaving at 15:49. Announcer keeps saying something about electronic equipment that I can't quite understand, but it sounds like you can only use mobile phones from cars B and C. Or D and C. I'm in K.

I've never heard of Darlington, but it has a station as big as York's or bigger. 16:14, leaving 2 minutes later... as I've noted before, high-speed rail excels in serving the smaller towns outside the biggest cities, compared to air travel. Zip through, stop a few minutes, zip out.

16:32: Terrain is getting hillier, and we zipped through a really interesting looking town. Lots of old buildings on slopes. Pretty much impossible to take a picture though.

16:42 Newcastle. Very industrial out there.

I have yet to see anything remotely coastal.

Hah! "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ—think it possible you may be mistaken.", my favorite line of Oliver Cromwell's, just showed up in 1633 (the novel).

Oh! Coast! Ocean! A cute little town at the mouth of the river... some distance from the station, I wonder how one gets there. "Alnmouth for Alnwick". *Not* a big station, just a standard two tracks and platforms right by the parking lot.

The seat recliner button doesn't lean the seat-back back -- no room for that -- but lets the horizontal seat move forward.

Train attendant is the "train guard".

One thing I've been noting is that the two sides of the track often aren't the same. Like trees on the right, fields on the left. Or just now, steep sloping fields ot the left, with lots of rolled up bundles of hay, and short flat stretch to the coast on the right. Or coastal fields on the right, houses on the left.

Coast is a lot closer now, passing by cliffs. Odd view of a trailer park at the top of a cliff, surrounding one much older building.

Surprising, to me, number of g-forces on the train. Accelerate, decelerate, curve.

18:00. Heading west, can see mountains across a large bay.
:07. We're surely in Edinburgh now.

I finally understood the message. Put wireless devices in silent mode, take calls in vestibules.