Off the rails and.. .
THE PEOPLE of Kent appear to be fright- ened of trains. Perhaps they have not noticed any, lately. I can see how it hap- pens. Crossing their county the other evening, I found it festooned with motor- ways — wide, noisy, brilliantly lit, and in the process of being made bigger. Every so often I would traverse a dark, narrow, silent trough, with a single green light in the dis- tance. These were railway cuttings. The idea that the county might get another rail- way, towards the end of this century, has come as a terrible shock. There is concern for the village of Boxley, which nestles in the North Downs and is described as pic- turesque, though the picture is dominated by a motorway. In London, the people of Islington have gone one better. Although an ample four-track railway runs (in a cut- ting) through their borough, they have resisted the idea of putting trains on it. Instead, the trains will follow the railway line but in a tunnel underneath. That, I should add, is the latest idea. The plans for the Channel Tunnel link line are still not complete, but I have two suggestions for speeding things up. First, show the protestors what a modern railway (the East Coast main line, for example) is like. Sec- ond, make some of the trains stop for them.
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