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[flemmings]

Amelia Peabody and her Master Criminal are getting on my nerves, so I've been having recourse to Sherlock Holmes, both the original and in pastiche. Both the original and the pastiches move me to reflect that the Victorian Era had many conveniences (for the middle and monied classes, of course) that must have proved a major impetus to the rise of labour unions. Three mail deliveries a day, for instance. But even this lavish attitude to other people's time and convenience fails to make me believe that there was *always* a train to the most god-forsaken reaches and the tiniest towns inside England, not merely several times a day, but usually within half an hour of whenever the need to get there first arose.

Though for all I know, maybe England really was as wrapped about with railway tracks as an overdecorated Christmas tree with lights and glitter chains. One just wonders how this left enough space for, yanno, fields and forests and the like.

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Heh really 3 deliveries a day? ...I do recall though that the little village where my aunt lived in Farningham, Kent right up to the late 80's had two post deliveries.

And yes if my aunt's little village is anything to go by ... you *CAN* get a train to everywhere. Two things that might have been important though ... Firstly was a stop along the way from Victoria Stn, London to Canterbury. Secondly in the days of steam, the nearby River Dartford was handy, and with a papermill(now defunct) on the river trains might have had to stop there for goods anyways. *shrugs* I'm guessing by the way. I gather from my uncle that the Mill was important in its heyday. ^_^

And most of these stories would occur near some big towns with industries and rivers nearby and I guess you could get stops everywhere. Although as to the when ...you know the time tables haven't changed much, from my first visit in '82 and right up to the time I graduated in '94. There were usually two or three. For example the King's Cross to Edinburgh route still remains largely the same as to when the Flying Scotsman used to do its run. In my first visit there were three trains then. Now there are more services of course. They alternated between a stopping service and an express one.

And and ...uhmmm *facepalm* I'm sorry I think nostalgia or something got away from me. I didn't mean to bore you with OMG the trivialities of rail travel of all things. 'Duh!' *humbly apologises*

However ... one last thing ... if you ever go back to England and happen to visit York, do make a visit of the National Railway Museum. It isn't as dry and droll as that sounds it is actually quite a fascinating place! ^_^

The dork in me could not resist. It is reading Victorian things and have it come alive in the very well preserved steamers of days gone by, the luxury travel as taken by the monied classes of the then Empirical Britain! huzzah!

*sneaks away* - sorry again.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The Holmes stories are always talking about 'a tiny hamlet' that somehow has a train station within a fifteen minute horse drive of it. Last time I was in England my friend drove me around a bit, and my impression of the countryside outside Liverpool was a succession of, indeed, small hamlets with nothing between them but highway requiring 60 mph to traverse. Maybe the south is different, but the north seems pretty isolated.