This is a selection from 153 plates
in the 1914 edition of the book of Railway Junction Diagrams, a tantalising
set of cartographic puzzles for the anxious traveller on the British
Railway system in the years before the grouping. Some diagrams fight
against massed ranks of lowering mountains, some against vast bodies
of water. Some rural halts are so uncomplicated that they share their
space in our consciousness with two others on the page. Sometimes
they are intestinal in their complexity, sometimes they are the most
cursory of neural structures.
Thank Heavens, say I, that travel by
Rail has become so simple and carefree converted back to its Privatised
Mode. Huzzah for the hours spent waiting on unmarked platforms for
trains that never arrive. Huzzah for the vouchers of compensation.
The tracks once so colorful and diverse are now linear parks and the
name of Beeching resounds down through History like a Fearsome Curse.
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