As I write this, I see a train passing by, through my window. I can not see the whole of the train, because between my garden and the railway there are some buildings and a tree. So I can only see a fraction of each train as it goes along. Not too much of their noise reaches me. More than the noise, what annoys me is the amount of bridges under which I need to walk in the night, to get from the bus stop to my house. They are not lightened and there are gaps besides the wall of the bridges, big enough for a person or two. So it is not very nice to go through those rail bridges and I analyse my route from different bus stops to try to avoid them.
Very near my house, there is a street called “Station Road”. There is no station nowadays, but this name tells me that there must have been some station right there. They call it rationalisation, when they eliminate stations to make the trains “run” faster. Yes, the long-distance traveller now travels faster, because three minutes are saved on each journey by eliminating my nearest train station. The small price of that is to eliminate this public service to the local neighbours, who, not having a train service, still have the inconvenience of living near a busy and noisy rail lane. Very rational.
