I took a train from one end of the line to the other, and it only cost me £1.60. And even though it took just three minutes to cover less than a mile, that still felt like a bargain. Because, although I’ve been riding the shuttle train between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town all my life, only now have I realised how special it is, being the shortest railway line in Britain.
I whiled away the three-minute journey reading deeply into the subject. There were a couple of operators on board, which seemed a bit excessive under the circumstances, so I took the opportunity to bombard them with questions. I felt bad about asking this, but I wondered whether, when they were growing up wanting to be train drivers, this was quite what they had in mind. “Well, the thing is,” said one of them, “I never really wanted to be a train driver in the first place.” I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
