How fast can you run?” Francis Bourgeois asks, not waiting for an answer. It’s 9am and we’re barely done with bleary-eyed introductions on platform 5 at Willesden Junction in London. Now the 22-year-old is legging it towards the exit, weaving through the throngs of Thursday- morning commuters. He’s into the ticket hall, through the barriers, down the street and up a grotty roadside staircase. In the centre of a footbridge, he comes to a halt. Bourgeois catches his breath and breaks into a smile – proper ear-to-ear grin – as he looks over the crisscrossing railway tracks sprawling towards the city ahead.
“Last night I did a lot of planning,” he says, “trying to find this morning’s best London train action. And passing through Willesden now are your standard passenger trains, and aggregate and intermodal freight services, but also…” he cuts himself off, hearing something in the distance. “There it is,” he says, as a train appears on the horizon right on cue. “It’s the British Pullman,” he informs me, “one of the most luxurious trains in the UK today.”
