UNCOUPLING

"Jes, for God’s sake you’re going to get us killed!"

Aloft on his mountainous machine the tractor driver bobs along obliviously like only a tractor driver can, while all around him lose their heads and blame it all on him.

I pull back in behind and thump the wheel. We’ve been stuck behind him for 10 minutes! What idiot has fields so far away from where he keeps his tractor? And with all that power why can’t he find a couple of extra gears to make the bloody thing go faster than 35 mph! Can’t he bob any quicker!

‘We’re going to miss this train!’ I vent.

'It doesn’t matter, just be careful!'

It does matter. The fact we’re not going anywhere on it makes no difference. At this moment in time, while looking at the back end of this agricultural road block for the eleventh consecutive minute, getting to the station is the most important thing in the world.

You see, the Flying Scotsman is coming to Dunfermline and we have to be there. Why? Because we go back a long way. When we lived in Yorkshire we’d go and see it often, in pieces, being lovingly restored in the National Railway Museum. Now we live in Scotland and it's coming to see us. When he was two, the eldest fell in love with the thing, and slept for years with a small replica next to his pillow. We pulled it off the cover of the first edition of Great Locomotives of the World. Special offer; the best 99p we ever spent. Such was his devotion that he took the bold move of introducing the Brio version into Sodor, the only non-fictional vehicle on the network.

SEE IT, SAY IT, SOD IT

It’s not very good is it. I mean, how many people go "Wow, yes, I now feel empowered to play my part in keeping Britain’s railways safe". And how many people just go "it’s not very good is it"?

Which isn't what you'd expect from the railways. That pioneering force. That great British engine of social and cultural change. A hundred years ago the railways were busy changing the world, connecting our towns and cities, giving us all a way to get to work, and something to complain about when we got there. Before the railways we didn't even share the same time zone. And there was no WHSmith. And now what do they give us? Sloppy slogans and nonsensical announcements.

For example, when did it become necessary to remind us what a station does by putting the word 'stop' after it? And since when did things start 'arriving into' them? And how long has it been possible for something to be 'formed from' eight carriages. You'd think an organisation that spends all its time going to and from places would be on top of its propositions.