I returned from London on Saturday on the National Express (though they spell it without the caps - how very modern) and then changed to a little Northern service train I don't normally use (because even without caps the express had failed to deliver me on time for my connection). The contrast was enormous, though I rather liked the rattly, rather grimy workaday 2 carriages compared with the swish (well, fairly swish) mainline multi-carriage thing. It reminded me of the poem by Masefield which describes various cargo carrying boats and ends up with the dirty British tramp steamer. I thought there was an opportunity for a hommage to Cargoes here...
little Metro train like a dirty little tramp steamer / batting up the line to Thorne / in its mad Jan days carrying shoppers trippers nippers get-a-grippers strippers footie-watchers fare dodgers lip-givers kippers and waifs and strays.
You can see my first jottings got a bit random and loose - but that's the way ideas get shaken out of you.
