Trains (1603 - Present)

In continued deviation from my selected subject, today I will be looking at (by which I mean reviewing) trains. Trains, great metal sausages rolling through our mash potato country side and our mixed vegetable suburban areas, along our gravy coastlines and under the national plate that is the ground.

Trains, they have been around for ages, haven't they? Yes. The first steam engines were actually toys for little (by which I mean children) Greeks, some 600 years before Jesus (The Christian equivalent of our Mohammad). Since those humble beginnings, trains have come a long way. Trains now come in all sorts of sizes, be they single carriage or double carriaged. Trains come in all sorts of colours, blue, grey, sliver, red, orange, green, black, hyper-vomit, pink, silver, gold, purple or even brown. Trains are used for transporting all sorts of goods and services, anything from turnips to accountancy, from feathers to Worksop, from abstract concepts (such as time, which can be extremely volatile) to plain old Christmas hair bags to Santa (Claus), yes at some point almost everything you've ever touched has been on a train.

But train excitement doesn't stop there, not by some way, thanks to capitalism and the (correct) belief that all men are not born equal, our beloved class system is also available on trains. We have both first and second class, though third class went missing some years ago and is presumed lost. In second class there are few perks (seats, windows, ventilation) and often you will have to sit next to someone with whom you are not on first name terms with, which, as I can testify, can be jolly awkward.

Much better then that we focus our collective effort (come on team!) on lovely first class, so called because it is indeed lovely. In (lovely) first class the air smells of sweet jade, the windows bear the tint of sweet jade and the carriages multi-faith prayer leader wears robes dyed in the sweetest jade. Seats are also better than in second class, indifiningly so, but better all the same. Your train-waiter (traiter) introduces you to each member of your fellow cohort as you are gently lifted onto the train and eased, delicately, into your seat. This may seem like an odd formality but is actually how the powers that be choose to converse and as a result the laws, bi-laws and quinx-laws of our great nation (whichever nation you, the reader, are from) are born. Yes, without the mighty train, pumping its many liquid filled legs of benevolent rubber, governance would be just a fools daydream, escaping into the ether whilst many a previously sane soul rips the head off their once loved neighbour and stares, destitute, at their last morsels of anarchic food.

There are also many humorous instances involving trains, which I am sure will amuse and amaze you in equal measure, unfortunately I cannot remember but one. So you will have to use your imaginations.

Trains are not just means of transport (this word comes from the greeco-latonium 'trainsport', which means to travel distances by train), but also they can be used for building bridges, sorting seeds and one train even holds the record for 'most inventions by a train'. I would go on to talk about these fantastic inventions, but seeing as each and every member of our global society uses both at least once a day (in the case of the latter, more likely twice) it seems as though I would be wasting my (typed) letters. Much like explaining to a postman, why it is that clocks are shperical, he would just become enraged and loose equilibrium, given his vast knowledge of the subject matter.

In conclusion, though trains have a ratio of just 1:5 compared to household pets, they are at least six times more loved*, which is a net win for our fantastic, feline powered friends. Trains will, literally, be around forever (according to Nostradamus) and its a good thing to, because trains are great!

*Figures taken from the UK preference survey 2001