Thought a long time about the dirty little diesel (didn't need 'train') until I realised that what marked it out from the other two trains was the fact that it was so un-streamlined, so blunt and chopped off.

Eurostar of Gare du Nord from distant Paris
Gliding home to London under the sea
With a cargo of wine-sippers
Holiday makers, honeymooners
Claret, cognac and hot sweet tea.

East coast mainline coming from Kings Cross
Clipping through the Midlands by the rain soaked fields
With a cargo of businessmen,
Geordies, Scottish ladies,
Toasted sandwiches and cheap meal deals.

Dirty little diesel with a blunt front end
Batting up the line on a clear Jan day
With a cargo of shoppers, trippers,
Young mums, nippers,
Footie-watchers and waifs and strays.

Eurostar of Gare du Nord from distant Paris
Gliding home to London under the sea
With a cargo of --------------
Holiday makers, honeymooners
Claret, cognac and hot sweet tea.

Diesel electric east coast mainline coming from kings cross
ripping / nipping / clipping through the midlands by the rain soaked fields
with a cargo of businessmen
Geordies Scotsladies ....
toasted sandwiches and cheap meal deals

dirty little diesel train with a  ----------------
batting up the line on a clear Jan day
with a cargo of shoppers, trippers
young mums, nippers
footie-watchers and waifs and strays

Middle verse edits:
East coast mainline coming from Kings Cross
Clipping through the Midlands by the rain soaked fields
with a cargo of businessmen
Geordies Scots-ladies ....
toasted sandwiches and cheap meal deals.

Lines 3 and 4 need attention but otherwise I'm fairly happy.

The Quinquereme has got to be the poshest of the lot, surely? So Eurostar seems to fit the bill. Should I have something more exotic in the final line?

Eurostar of Gare du Nord from distant Paris
Gliding home to London under the sea
With a cargo of --------------
Holiday makers, honeymooners
Claret, cognac and hot sweet tea.

I'll put all of them together next and see how the thing reads as a whole rather than its separate bits.

the second verse has the stately spanish galleon carrying topazes and gold moidores, which always sounds very exotic.   my verse is inevitably going to be bathetic.

diesel electric east coast mainline coming from kings cross
ripping / nipping / clipping through the midlands by the rain soaked fields
with a cargo of businessmen
Geordies Scotsladies ....
toasted sandwiches and cheap meal deals

now onto the quinquireme...

Have got some of that into a bit of a shape which echoes the last verse of Cargoes quite well, I think:

dirty little diesel train with a  ----------------
batting up the line on a clear Jan day
with a cargo of shoppers, trippers
young mums, nippers
footie-watchers and waifs and strays

The previous verses speak of stately spanish galleons and a quinquereme of Nineveh, which I always thought was a wonderful phrase, and still do. No wonder we remember these things.

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.