Given my impending ADHD assessment, I felt I should do something today to try to take my mind off it. But what? Something utterly brainless to pass the time and provide a modicum of entertainment. As I have done for most of my life when serious stuff comes along, I chose to watch some trains go by. This time, I actually went to another country.
That other country was, rather obviously, Wales, which is only a short drive across the Second Severn Crossing or, as no one calls it, the Prince of Wales Bridge. You may ask yourself why I didn’t take the train to go train-spotting given that there are numerous trains from near where I live to Wales but, quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered. Not least because Severn Tunnel Junction is not the most interesting place to spend any amount of time, unless you like trains. Even then, it’s less hassle to drive there.
There’s a fair bit of traffic at STJ. Everything from South Wales to Bristol and further east, as well as most stuff to Portsmouth and some stuff to all points South West. There’s also stuff from Oop North – well, the Midlands – passing through Gloucester and then Chepstow before going on to Cardiff, maybe even beyond. And there’s the odd goods train. I was fortunate to see a Class 66 locomotive hauling the longest Tesco train I have ever seen. But as with so many stations in Britain, there’s sod all to do and nowhere to go. There’s a pub called the Roggiett hotel, so called because it’s technically in Rogiet (why it’s spelt different, I don’t know and don’t care), although it has been closed, probably since the days of steam engines.
There’s plenty of parking at the station, but at £4 I felt it somewhat overpriced. I’d have been happy to be ripped off for, say, a quid but sod that. Instead, I parked up around half a mile from the station, along with the other car park dodgers.
A few trains do stop at STJ and I did observe at least two people boarding them during my hour at the station but here’s the thing: just about every train I saw was all but empty. Even the speeding Hitachi electrics fly through almost devoid of passengers, or customers as the private rail companies call them. As well as hardly any passengers at the station, there are literally no staff, either. You could have been forgiven for thinking this was a ghost railway with ghost trains rattling through the ghost station. We know the rail workers are currently taking strike action but it seems to me that the only people who will be affected are the people who work for the railways.
There’s plenty of seating at the station and I was able to claim and entire waiting room to myself. I had brought my book to read, but frankly the seats weren’t very comfortable and I made do with watching trains go by and thinking about trains going by when they weren’t.
This sort of activity suits me to the ground. I can be all on my own, I can think far too much and it’s almost impossible for me to bump into someone I know. But soon, often rather too soon, I am bored with somewhere after I’ve been there barely a few minutes. In fact, it’s been known for me to go train-spotting only to leave before I have seen any trains. Today, I kind of made it worthwhile.
After all these years, I’m still fascinated by trains and it certainly makes a change from one of other major hobbies: watching planes take off and land. Who said ADHD?
