Bloody French

I was born in a grimy industrial Northern town, with few redeeming features that were not destroyed by planners in the 1960's. There were almost no buildings of style or interest except the local parish church, and the skyline to the North was dominated by the flare-stacks and chimneys of the massive chemical works. When the wind was in the wrong direction, we could scent the acrid brown of nitrogen dioxide which we could see floating towards the town, turning to nitric acid in our lungs.

And yet the industrial background was something to be proud of. Stockton-on-Tees was home to the very first passenger railway in the world, which ran in 1825. The revolution in powered transport for ordinary people started there. The first house in which I lived had a railway embankment at the bottom of the garden, so that I could watch the steam trains slowly shunting by from our back room. The embankment was an extension of my garden for playing in, with overgrown bushes and tall grass to hide in and young trees to climb. So I have always had a fondness for railways, and a preference for rail travel over all other methods. I have watched the slow decline of Britain's railways with despair; our ticket prices high with an arcane charging structure, the carriages often rickety or filthy, and running slower than they did thirty years ago. The slavery to making money at the expense of beauty and effectiveness meant that stations such as Paddington were cluttered with kiosks and booths selling stuff to the travellers waiting for the trains that always arrived late.

And then, three years ago, I took a job with a French company with offices based just by the Gare de Lyon. And I was shocked. The trains, heading for the Mediterranean and points south, were clean, modern and fast. The station looked as if it were built for the public, not the shop-keepers. The next year, in Spring 2005 Moonface and I took a holiday in the south of France, near Nice, and experienced mountain railways that could never have been built here. The tracks clung to the side of gorges, and spiralled upwards inside solid rock, doubling back upon themselves to climb high over Alpine passes. We were impressed and awed at what could be done. Even these branch lines had new, clean, spacious trains. It made me so jealous and angry that Britain's engineering heritage has been pissed away training accountants and lawyers to be better paid and more respected that men and women who can build.

This last weekend I travelled to Nancy in the east of France to see a friend. (More of that some other time) For the return trip I took the direct TGV Est line, newly opened this June. It made me spit with anger. We travelled two hundred miles in ninety minutes, in quiet comfort, in reserved seats with plenty of luggage space at a price far below that of a similar trip in the UK. The same distance from London would take three time as long and cost three times as much.
Oh, and the train ran exactly to its timetable, arriving spot-on at noon.

Bloody French.


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