November 20

On the road again today, or more accurately on the tracks: the 15:00 GNER service (train-speak) from London Kings Cross to Newcastle, about 3 hours north.

Rail travel is much more common over here, exemplified by the fact as well as regularly departing from Kings Cross, for previous trips I’ve caught cross-country trains from Waterloo, Victoria, Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Marylebone and Fenchurch Street stations. These stations are always packed (with business travelers, tourists, family members visiting, students, day trippers to London, etc.) and provide quite a contrast with my memories of lone Spencer Street station (from which I never caught a train – nor can I imagine ever doing so) and the few people milling around the eight or so platforms.

Of course the distances here are much more train-travel friendly. Relatively short distances, meaning ‘home’ is usually a within the day journey away, impacts on things such as university, where it’s more in the American-style with people going away (my colleague said that its considered ‘weird’ to just stay home and go to the closest uni) as well as jobs, where people will relocate quite readily for work. In fact, of all the English people I know living in London, none of them were actually raised as Londoners. It seems that the families that do live here are either of the very well off or the not very well off variety - all the middle of the road people can live here as singles or young professional couples, but then need to look further afield when family becomes an issue... then down the track their kids can go away to university, find work in London and the cycle begins again.