WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The glad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.119 are here. Let's get into it. I have never been 3 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:13.640 one to romanticize the railway, at least not in the 4 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:15.720 way of those poets or painters who speak of steam 5 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:18.440 as if its thereth's own bath. My affection has always 6 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.679 been for the quieter things, the satisfying click of popery, 7 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:22.239 A line points the weight of a steel key in 8 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:24.280 the palm, the deep firm of a locomotive at rest. 9 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:27.519 Since retiring, I walk the old suburban lines out of 10 00:00:27.559 --> 00:00:29.839 habit more than lonin, content to note the small ways 11 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:31.960 the world changes. The graffiti the ballooms and is painted 12 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:34.000 of her, a new cluster of wild flows nosing up 13 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:37.719 through forgotten ballast. Most mornings clear sends me out the 14 00:00:37.719 --> 00:00:39.960 door with the mild sword of warning, reserved for eccentric 15 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.439 old men who might, on a whim bring Homan off 16 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:44.560 and kitten. If you find an engine, don't drag that 17 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.200 back either. She's not a kind, just gently bemused by 18 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.799 my loyalties, more interested in crosswad buzzles in the kitchen 19 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:52.920 radio than in the intricate, half collapsed web of rails 20 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:55.520 that still dream beneath the city. I'll lean into my 21 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.280 own routine, a thermis of tea, two digestive biscuits tucked 22 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:00.159 in my coat, and a notebook to tally. Would ever 23 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.079 oddities or elapses of maintenance I spoked On this particular morning, 24 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:06.239 the mist hung so thickly a round the embankment that 25 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:08.799 the world seemed reduced for a series of outlined houses, 26 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:12.239 signal boxes the start of the parks woods. Most days 27 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:15.159 these walks are meditative, nothing more pressing to considered than 28 00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:17.120 whether it's time for the council to trim the hedges 29 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.640 flank into right of way. I was making a slow 30 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:22.319 circuit past the crumbling abutment of the old Croxley footbridge 31 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:24.200 when I felt at the ground beginning to vibrate the 32 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:27.840 way it does just before passenger service barrels drew. At first, 33 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:30.799 there seemed nothing out of the ordinary. Freight runs in 34 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:33.439 rare excursion trains still use the branch, and even now 35 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:36.040 I can often identify a service by its rhythm and engine. No, 36 00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:39.799 but this train was different. Quieters whither the carriage is unfamiliar. 37 00:01:40.359 --> 00:01:43.280 They glided past, gleaming but painted in a livery somewhere 38 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:45.879 between modern and ageless. With no company logo. I could 39 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:49.319 see mist coold around each carriage, meuting their presence, and 40 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.920 yet they were underibly real. Then beyond the next bend, 41 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:55.879 the train slowed. My heart caught, not an alarm, but 42 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:58.280 in the pleas surprise of seeing something routine done with 43 00:01:58.359 --> 00:02:02.680 unexpected care. There between last week's brambles and the old 44 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:06.319 telegraph pole, a platform had come into existence. Not an 45 00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:09.039 overgrown relignor a pop up maintenance hall, but a full, clean, 46 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:13.280 thoroughly ordinary station, a classic painted signed Croxley's mouth. The 47 00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:15.520 name meant nothing to me. There was and always had 48 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:18.039 been a Croxley junction to the north, but never a south, 49 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:21.800 or so I was certain. The train doors hissed, releasing 50 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:24.560 three passengers, a tall man with a briefcase, a woman 51 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:26.919 in a yellow mac and an elderly gentleman who paused 52 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:28.800 to tip his hat to a uniform porter. Where had 53 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.800 he come from? I inched closer, squinting at the freshly 54 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:35.120 painted wood and meticulously swept platform. One of the enamel 55 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:38.039 posters advertised to play I didn't recognize, next to a 56 00:02:38.039 --> 00:02:41.400 time one noticeable listing wheakly departures. The train did not 57 00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:44.479 linger as it pulled away with the same unfamiliar hush. 58 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.800 The passengers dispersed along the gravel path, each setting off 59 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.319 with purposeful steps. By the time the rails sang empty again, 60 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:53.879 I found myself alone, the platform in small brick station, 61 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:56.879 gleaming with improbable newness, as if it had simply slotted 62 00:02:56.879 --> 00:02:59.960 itself into the lines fabric overnight. I tried to prove 63 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.080 which the world seemed to resist, the grass tugging at 64 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:04.360 my boot laces, the path gently curving away. Even as 65 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:07.479 I corrected myself. After a few minutes, I was standing 66 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.719 further down the track, closer to the allotments than I 67 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:13.719 had intended. I stood there taut, senses sharpened, not frightened, exactly, 68 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:15.479 but full of a kind of hunger I hadn't felt 69 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:18.039 in years, the drive to know all at once. The 70 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:20.719 familiar morning felt subtily strange, as if I'd been handed 71 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.879 a riddle folded inside the city itself. My pulse pounded 72 00:03:24.039 --> 00:03:27.039 not with alarm, but with a quickening curiosity. I half 73 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:29.199 laughed at my own excitement as I made my way home, 74 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:32.159 rehearsing possible explanations, already planning how I might test the 75 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.120 world seems cleo met me at the door, pausing made 76 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:39.120 a whisk, blue dressing gown flapping back so soon she asked, 77 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:42.520 I shrugged, fumbling for a response that wouldn't sound mad. 78 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:45.560 The moment was too vivid for dismissal. A platform where 79 00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:47.759 there should be none, a hole miniature world slatted between 80 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:50.800 yesterday and to day. I sipped my tea, intensely, aware 81 00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:52.360 of an itch under my skin that would not be 82 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.080 soothed by a rational process not yet already My mind 83 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:58.919 turned to questions most people assume are real. We like 84 00:03:58.919 --> 00:04:01.680 any public thing is a close system, stations, map timetables, 85 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:05.400 immutable histories already written. I'd have agreed until that morning. 86 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:08.000 Clear was one of those rare souls who respects my 87 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:11.000 railway monologs without quite listening to them. Her tolerance is 88 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:14.080 more generous and most She settled in at the breakfast table, 89 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:16.879 pinching the newspaper open, and I stood behind her, watching 90 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.839 the miss Brighton through the kitchen window. My own history 91 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:22.959 with British rails tangled network is long, sometimes tedious, even 92 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.680 to me. Apprenticed to the track at nineteen, became a 93 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:28.560 signalman by thirty, and spent two decades working the local 94 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:30.839 lines stations that now exist as much in memory as 95 00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:33.920 in Breckensteel. For years, the city's rails were my pat 96 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:36.720 track comb I learned censor trains waited by vibrations alone 97 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:38.879 to judge a locomotives moved by cork in its whistle. 98 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:40.959 This part of the city used to be a kind 99 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.959 of jewel in the network's leak, interconnected, much lauded by 100 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:47.399 trade journals in the seventies. In recent decades it declined 101 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:50.560 into muddle of forgotten sidings, unused signal boxes, and surplus 102 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:54.759 buildings with doors forever locked. Entire branch lines vanished, burrowed 103 00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:57.519 beneath new housing. Estates were vanished under noisy ring roads. 104 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:01.399 The main station, all high, grimy art and suspended clocks 105 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:04.240 hung on his a relic. Elsewhere, the landscape buckled into 106 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:07.519 semi wild space's succession woodland Kid's dends made of old sleepers. 107 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:10.120 The branch line I patrol is an even on most 108 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:12.879 modern maps, the railed, roasted but still hall offering bedroom 109 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.360 suburbs of vanishingly rare connection to the wider network on 110 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:18.759 busy days. Retirement for me was not an escape from 111 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:21.040 this world, but a way of moving closer to its details. 112 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:24.639 I became the unofficial watched of the line, noting each 113 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:27.920 new instance of antisocial behavior, stray fox or failed lamp, 114 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.560 sometimes at the requests of still working signals, relaying oddities 115 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.199 in infrastructure. There is a small circle of as former guards, drivers, 116 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:38.279 schedulers and fitters who sustain an informal council over drinks 117 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:41.120 at the Signalman's Club every Thursday. We are a tribe 118 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:44.199 built of querious reminiscences, our shared language, haunted by the 119 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:48.240 dry moorishness of sand papid memory. The suburb itself has changed, slow, 120 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:51.639 persistent as weeds. Where there were water meadows, there are 121 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.600 now box of red brick build to rent blocks, crowded 122 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:57.120 with young families. Road snake a long new boundaries marked 123 00:05:57.160 --> 00:06:00.240 by bus stops and patient for usage. Standing among these 124 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:02.720 shifted remnants, I feel like a man picking over at 125 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:05.079 the bones of something once vast, a city that remembers 126 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:08.439 itself only in patches. In this context, the idea that 127 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:10.600 the station, any station, could appear over night struck me 128 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:14.279 as undering the impossible for older folk. The landscape rearranges 129 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:16.800 itself quietly over years, never by an at of magic. 130 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:20.319 There is of course only one Croxley, and thus Croxley 131 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:23.600 junction with the line split north. I own guidebooks going 132 00:06:23.639 --> 00:06:26.560 back half a century, some of crackspines and knee penciled notes. 133 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:30.920 Every halt, every closure, every station relabeling Croxley South has 134 00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:34.560 never appeared in any listing, not even as a proposal. Still, 135 00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:37.079 the presence of that platform stopped more than an ordinary train. 136 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:40.319 It stopped my belief in unchangeable things. That day I 137 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:43.079 wrote perhaps two dozen words in my battered notebook, hesitating 138 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:45.439 at every letter, ashamed at the uncertainty bleeding into my 139 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:49.439 nominally crisp script. Unfamiliar station, Croxley suff passengers, the very unknown, 140 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:53.680 not hallucination, physical platform, porter passengers, impossible location, not on 141 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:56.240 any map. I placed the notebook beside my cup and 142 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.839 sack quietly, the rumor washing, the gentle domestic noise that 143 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:01.879 marked the farthest thing from a relation. By mid afternoon, 144 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:05.920 curiosity overrode discretion. I brought up the anomaly with clear risking, 145 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:08.399 the sort of indulgence mouss she reserves for railway trivia. 146 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:11.240 Saw something odd on the line to day passenger train 147 00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:14.920 stop that Croxley South doesn't exist, does it. She looked up, 148 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:18.399 face increased, Well, unless you mean Croxley Junction. May be 149 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.839 one of the staff got a new sign. Wrong, not possible, 150 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:24.800 I murmured. It was proper, you know, as if it 151 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:28.519 had always been there. She patted my hand, unconcerned. You 152 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:30.360 do you work yourself up? Love. Could have been some 153 00:07:30.439 --> 00:07:32.639 film crew or a replacement bus. Maybe you stumbled into 154 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:35.959 a rehearsal, she teased. We laughed gently, and she changed 155 00:07:35.959 --> 00:07:38.839 the subject to dinner. Still the thought gnawed at me. 156 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:42.360 That evening I contacted Arthur, one of my oldest colleagues, 157 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:44.560 former deeper form In, proud owner of the largest and 158 00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:48.040 sortable collection I know. Arthur. I tried you free for 159 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.560 a walk tomorrow. Knead your eyes on something peculiar by 160 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:53.879 the branch you finally found that missing length of bullhevrail. 161 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.519 He equipped. I sensed his skepticism, but old railway hands 162 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:00.639 know not to turn down a curiosity. We rendezvous the 163 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:03.800 following morning. Jacket sipped hands thrust into pockets to ward 164 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:06.839 off the shell. I led him alone yesterday's path, my 165 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:08.720 nose fluttering. What if it was a trick of the 166 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:12.040 weather or my mind nor worse had vurnished entirely, but 167 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:13.839 the bend in the line revealed only which should have 168 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:16.600 always been a modest slope. Third with bramble fencing, awrye 169 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:20.800 tracksaid grass, flattened by the lazy passage of foxes, no platform, 170 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:24.480 no sign of structure or scuffed tarmac. I felt a fool, 171 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:27.399 and Arthur grinned with no unkindness. Be sure you haven't 172 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:29.560 been into the strong tea, he joked, kneeling to put 173 00:08:29.560 --> 00:08:32.440 the soil where twelve hours before the station's paving head lane. 174 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:35.240 If this is a Croxley south here, my name's Mortimer, 175 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.600 Duke of Devonshire. Honestly, I insisted, it was as clear 176 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:41.200 as the nose. On nearer, he threw up a hand. 177 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.720 No one's doubting your nose. But stations don't just appear, 178 00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:48.320 they're built. They leave marks. He tramped about, nudged at 179 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.799 some collapse fencing, dug at the base of an old telegraph. 180 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:54.279 Pose you haven't had a knock on the head recently, no, 181 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:57.960 I replied, unwilling to laugh, his face softened, lines of 182 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:01.799 age creasing deeper around his eyes. Well maybe you dreamt 183 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:03.759 it these walks to get a bit say me eh. 184 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:06.759 We strolled back, Arthur humming a tune, and I felt 185 00:09:06.759 --> 00:09:09.799 the sting of embarrassment, but also a more acute, growing disquiet. 186 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:13.320 That evening I retrieved every timetable, real atlas and guide 187 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:16.320 book I owned five decades worth of railwa effemera at 188 00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:21.600 each page, underscoring my certainty. No Croxley South, no temporary platforms, 189 00:09:21.720 --> 00:09:25.200 no alternative names, no scheduled stopped between Croxley Junction and 190 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:28.080 the city. Had I fallen prey to some trick of memory? 191 00:09:28.679 --> 00:09:32.120 Suspicion narrowed to desperation. I posted a cautious question to 192 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:34.279 the regional section of an online form, a haven for 193 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.120 railway enthusiasts, some of whom had even worked alongside me 194 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:40.679 before digital clocks replaced wind up. Once I wrote, any 195 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:42.919 one have record a memory of a Croxley South station 196 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:45.840 in the north suburban branch? Cited something odd of details unclear. 197 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:48.559 The replies trickled and over the next day never heard 198 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:50.559 of it. Mate. The sounds like hupin at the sher 199 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:52.320 Could it be a ghost station? They did a thing 200 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:55.080 on those last year on telly. A few suggested perhaps 201 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:57.240 i'd cross paths with a heritage excursion or a film 202 00:09:57.240 --> 00:10:00.559 prop nun clearly had seen what I'd seen. The official 203 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:04.759 histories remained silent. Every source I checked, apartment of transport, bulletins, 204 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:09.039 signal block diagrams, local amateur histories offered no support. Nothing 205 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:11.919 had changed, except for the vividness of my memory. Light 206 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:13.840 into the night. I sat with my notebo, cop and 207 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:16.240 trace in my recollection, again and again, certain of the 208 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:18.879 clean lines of the Lettuce Belling Croxley South, certain of 209 00:10:18.919 --> 00:10:22.080 the commuters and their ordinary choreography on the unlikely platform. 210 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:27.279 Curiosity methstatized into obsession. I resolved quietly and without fanfare, 211 00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:30.320 to keep my vigil. I would keep to my walk's eyes, sharp, 212 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:33.639 mind stubbornly open. If reality had decided to slip its 213 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:35.360 tracks for a moment, I would not let the events 214 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:38.559 slide by, not without evidence. I did not expect the 215 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:41.399 world to bend further. But within a week the line 216 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:44.159 shifted in ways I was not prepared for. It happened 217 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:46.200 on an afternoon when the sky threatened rain and the 218 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:48.120 ground was scarfed with the marks of a thousand heavy 219 00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:50.679 boot school children and dog walkers wrapping up their routines 220 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.919 before the downpour. I had lengthened my walk, pacing all 221 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.240 the way to the cuttings near Nurs's yard, half watching 222 00:10:56.279 --> 00:10:59.320 the horizon for fox kits. This time their approach was 223 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.960 different to music bell a preamble, not the straight thunder 224 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:03.519 of a through service, but the measures slow in of 225 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:06.600 a halting local. I listened, squinting past the funnel of 226 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:09.480 trees lining the embankment, certain this was no scheduled train. 227 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:13.039 A moment later I saw it, not at Croxley, but 228 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:15.879 further down the line, where I described nothing but overgrown 229 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:17.720 gravel and a remnant of the old boundary wall. A 230 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:21.240 new station, its sign painted in crisp letters, Harrington Vale. 231 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.960 The platform stretched, elegantly fashioned from nineteen fifties. Brick were 232 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:28.120 crowned with ornate lamps. A short squat building sat at 233 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.519 one end, began a piesign fretwork clinting despite the low 234 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:33.759 cloud at a far end, and an emil sign warned 235 00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:38.039 no unauthorized the entry beyond this point. I pressed forward, genuinely, eager, 236 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:40.759 dismissing from now any thought of impossibility. After all, hadn't 237 00:11:40.759 --> 00:11:44.440 I promised myself A check not judge suited commuters five 238 00:11:44.519 --> 00:11:47.240 this time stepped from the train, unfurling umbrellas, each with 239 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:50.639 the blankly determined look of professionals accustomed to routine. An 240 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:53.399 older woman laughed as she greeted a uniform station attendant, who, 241 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:55.519 for all the world seemed delighted to see her, as 242 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:58.200 if both had performed this scene a thousand times. I 243 00:11:58.279 --> 00:12:01.240 examined every physical detail to binns marked with the nineteen 244 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:04.279 seventy style motif. The paper schedules pinned, the notice boarded 245 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:07.399 platform benches sounded to pale smoothness, the canopies warm bulbs, 246 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:11.000 burning with an ineffable welcome. If it was an historical recreation, 247 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:13.000 it was perfect, no detail out of place, from the 248 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.799 scuff brick to the faded mural. And yet I have 249 00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:19.360 passed this spot ten a hundred times. Nothing here should exist. 250 00:12:20.120 --> 00:12:22.879 This time I was determined to test a boundary. I 251 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:25.519 mapped the footpath in my mind, calculating the best proch 252 00:12:25.559 --> 00:12:28.200 past the hedge, through the narrow gap where the fence yielded. 253 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:31.480 Yet each appeared at only confusion. The path I thought 254 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:34.960 would bring me closer warped gently away without noticing I'd 255 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:37.679 wandered back toward the river, grass, dampening my trousers, my 256 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:40.960 attention drawn away, as though by some subtle tide. Frustration 257 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:44.200 joined curiosity, but not the kind that demands shouting or cursing. More, 258 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:46.399 the resigned sense of standing at the lip of a puzzle, 259 00:12:46.519 --> 00:12:49.240 waiting for it to show a seam. I checked my watch, 260 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:52.080 watched the next local service thunder past, and tried to 261 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:54.879 recall how the gaps in logic corresponded to gaps in geography. 262 00:12:55.519 --> 00:12:57.919 That night, I recounted the story to Arthur over pines 263 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:01.440 at the club. He let loose a familiar laugh. Sounds 264 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.240 like your collecting ghost stations, not tickets. Then more serious, 265 00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:07.840 Want some company next time. Two pairs of eyes, you know, 266 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:10.080 or else? Maybe one of us can talk sense while 267 00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:13.679 the other goes mad. I thanked him, almost bashful. If 268 00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:16.759 I'm imagining this, it's a very well made illusion. Or 269 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:19.519 he raised his glass. Maybe the city's just tired of 270 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:22.559 following the old rules. I slept patch late at night, 271 00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:26.159 my mind looping endlessly between the concrete schedules, maps, signals, 272 00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:29.840 and something else, the half imagined logic of dreams. Determined 273 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:32.320 to get proof, something that would stand up to ordinary scrutiny, 274 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:34.600 I carried my old camera with me on the next walk. 275 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:37.200 The day was brilliant, with the early sunlight, the trees 276 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:41.039 glowing green gold. As I neared Harrington Vale, I prepared settings, 277 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.879 adjusted lends, cap off, standing in the exact place where 278 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:47.919 the platform would reveal itself. The train came stop. Passengers debuked. 279 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:50.679 My heart thought it as I clicked a half dozen photos, 280 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:54.159 each frame carefully composed when I developed them. Yes, I 281 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:56.639 still use film for the tactile pleasure. My images revealed 282 00:13:56.639 --> 00:13:59.840 nothing but the empty landscape, over growing grasses, a broken fence, 283 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.799 the every day blankeests of a world without stations, no 284 00:14:02.919 --> 00:14:06.159 trace of brick, no sign, only the impression of something missing. 285 00:14:06.840 --> 00:14:09.879 I was at a loss. Was my memory failing or 286 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:13.159 was my camera in capable of recording the impossible. Either way, 287 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:16.000 my confidence took a knock. I began to doubt my 288 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:19.960 own senses, yet my conviction, if anything, deepened, I pressed on, 289 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:24.000 unwilling to let confusion turn to fear. I brought another friend, Rachel, 290 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.000 who'd worked the ticket counters at the main station for 291 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:29.519 twenty years. Practical, cheerful, and flappable. We set out together, 292 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:31.200 and when the train stopped at what I knew must 293 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:36.720 be Harrington Vale. She paused, quinting, is that new? I asked, Oh, 294 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:39.320 I never realized they've reopened that, she replied, as if 295 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:42.080 recognizing a favorite old jumpery years after throwing it out. 296 00:14:42.759 --> 00:14:44.960 Good on them. I suppose must have missed the news. 297 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:49.039 Are you certain it was closed before? She shrouked. I 298 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:51.159 don't keep track, but I've taken the train that way, 299 00:14:51.159 --> 00:14:53.080 Pretty sure I saw it in the leaflet for maybe 300 00:14:53.080 --> 00:14:56.200 it's always been there. Memories fuzzy. She didn't remark on 301 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:59.200 any oddity didn't seem mattled to her at the station 302 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:02.919 was one more on remarkable feature, already accepted, already normalized. 303 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:07.360 Her indifference infuriated me briefly, then left me chilled. If 304 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:10.720 only I could borrow some of her ascescients. A week passed. 305 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:13.919 I walked further, keeping notes in a second, now more 306 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:17.960 meticulous notebook. If reality was slipping, I would document every fragment. 307 00:15:18.559 --> 00:15:22.159 One morning, an even newer station announced itself, Almstead Ridge. 308 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:25.200 Here the sign was modern, the station freshly painted, but 309 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:28.159 already adorned with the decades old commemorative bench for fifty 310 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:31.559 years service, presented to station master Harold R. Orts nineteen 311 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:34.360 ninety one. I did the mental arithmetic. If the station 312 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:37.039 were that old, i'd have known. But the architecture was 313 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.919 t modern. The plaque stayed nonsensical. Neither the man nor 314 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:42.320 the bench belonged to my map of the world. I 315 00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:45.960 walked the perimeter, taking careful note. The platform buzzed faintly, 316 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:48.600 mothers with strollers, a boy in school uniform, laughing as 317 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:51.639 a harried conductor called to seven fifteen. The station used 318 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:54.679 the comfortable, lived in out some more holy, ordinary, nothing contestine, 319 00:15:54.759 --> 00:15:58.320 nothing mystical. When I approached, same as before, my feet 320 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.200 steered elsewhere, my intention of apple on the verge of fulfillment, 321 00:16:01.879 --> 00:16:05.519 to expand my test, I struck up conversations. A teenager 322 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:07.879 waiting for the bus insisted, Mum drops me off at 323 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:10.879 Elstead Ridge most mornings. She hates the traffic. But an 324 00:16:10.919 --> 00:16:13.639 elderly neighbor, Missess Carter, who had uplived all three of 325 00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:16.240 her husband's and half the posts were city reminisced Elstead 326 00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:18.960 Ridge was closed back in eighties, wasn't it other nineties? 327 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.399 They keep changing names, can never keep straight which ones 328 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.279 which her eyes clouded. I am sure I took my 329 00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:26.799 youngest there for Brownie's once, Or was it a school trip. 330 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.960 There's been too many changes, dear, the story is overlapped 331 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:33.200 but never exactly matched. For every person who remembered a 332 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:36.320 routine journey, another insisted the station had shut long ago, 333 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:38.519 or else recounted a distant tale in which it never 334 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:41.639 were existed. I measured the gaps in the certainty where 335 00:16:41.639 --> 00:16:44.639 their memories failed. The station seemed only to grow more substantial, 336 00:16:44.679 --> 00:16:48.080 betting into the city's everyday life. With each new discovery, 337 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:51.720 the sense of impossibility grew. The stations were neither universally 338 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:54.440 present nor entirely spectral. Leech occupied a perfect slot in 339 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:57.960 the world's logic, yet belonged to no previous pattern. I felt, 340 00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:02.279 amidst all this a peculiar respecting alongside my amusement. My 341 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:05.039 city was doing something I did not understand, and whatever 342 00:17:05.160 --> 00:17:08.000 was happening here was not a shallow trick. The stations 343 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.559 were entrenching themselves, not vanishing light dreams at dawn, but 344 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:14.640 nestling deeper each day into geography, memory, and routine persistent. 345 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:16.599 I set out to verify what the city's own record 346 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:18.680 keepers might have to say. Determined now to confront not 347 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:21.839 only the physical world but its official stories, I made 348 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.319 my way to the local Railway Museum, a snag slightly 349 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:26.359 musty outpost housed in a building that had once been 350 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:28.880 the grand ticket office of Aloma Band and Midline terminus. 351 00:17:29.480 --> 00:17:31.839 The volunteer on the front desk, a sprightly man named 352 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:34.720 Peter knew me by sight and welcomed me in, raising 353 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.759 no questions at my request to access the archives. Seated 354 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:40.680 among volumes as thick as railway sand, which is municipal records, 355 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:43.680 company ledges, city maps, endless stacks of news. As I 356 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:46.880 set about my search, I expected, I think, to find 357 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:49.559 only absence, to confirm my suffering, some ailment of perception. 358 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:52.640 Instead my jaw clench. There were entries for each new 359 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:56.960 station player. Bureaucratic pros chronicled their existence, the awarding of contracts, 360 00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:01.559 the ceremonial speeches, ticketing protocols, notes on local consultations. Each 361 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:03.839 entry fit the ear and style of its supposed creation, 362 00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:06.839 and the ink itself looked properly aged. I traced the 363 00:18:06.839 --> 00:18:10.079 elegant copperplate of an early nineties document ailsted Ridge opening 364 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.559 May nineteen ninety one, comprehensive ribbon cutting attended by station 365 00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:17.119 Master H. R. Oates, Mayor Driskull and assordid dignitaries. Sea 366 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:20.799 Group Photograph Archive file forty one b I thunderhead hands 367 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:23.799 sweating a photograph? Was there a crowd of city notables 368 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:26.599 and local railway officers, all gathered in front of Eltstead 369 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:29.720 Ridge's brand new sign at the center. Unmistakable in his 370 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:32.200 frame and uniform was my own father, grinning beside the 371 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:33.880 mirror in a way I'd only ever seen in our 372 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:37.400 family albums. The date, according to the label, coincided with 373 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:39.680 a period I knew he'd spend a station master elsewhere 374 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:43.359 as doubt numb I could recall, no mention of his involvement, 375 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.039 No stories told a Christmas of a grand opening. Here 376 00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:50.200 compel I come through the dusty reference library upstairs, the 377 00:18:50.279 --> 00:18:52.920 official British rail history books, those carefully vetted records of 378 00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:56.200 every change now listed Croxley, South, Harrington Vale and Elstead 379 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.640 Ridge in the station indixes, each with dates, service histories 380 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:03.039 of his numbers. On an annotated city railway map from 381 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:06.119 the late two thousands, stations bloom into view, line, stickened 382 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:08.480 and labeled as if grafted seamlessly to the line's own 383 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:12.960 vascular system. Every source agreed, but inside me there remained 384 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:15.920 an equal memory should have offered familiarity. I left a 385 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:18.839 museum in a daze. In my note book, the tidy 386 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:22.119 border of reality had started to rebel. The impossibility was 387 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:24.759 not narrowing, but expanding, as if the world's facts were 388 00:19:24.759 --> 00:19:27.680 being spun over bourununs seen hand. For the first time, 389 00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:30.440 I questioned my uncertainty not only about these stations, but 390 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:32.599 about whether there are any honestly immutable things in the 391 00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:35.839 universe at all. Desperate for something fixed, I resolved to 392 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:39.680 cross examine every possible independent source. Next came the maps, 393 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:41.440 laid out on my dining room table in the half 394 00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:44.480 light of the evening Teacolling by my elbow, I stat 395 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:48.160 matted chronologically decades arraid like fossil strata, city planning charts, 396 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:52.000 railway company diagrams, my own battered hand drawn amendments, each 397 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:53.759 inherited from a time in which I could have sworn 398 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:56.599 these places did not exist. But there they were. The 399 00:19:56.640 --> 00:19:59.240 new stations mark for the faintness that grew bolded the 400 00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:02.319 closer I inched toward the present. The oldest map shewed 401 00:20:02.319 --> 00:20:04.480