Dozens of trains went back and forth daily

to and from the junction in its heyday.

Fifty-five years ago, the last service.

The terminus building still stands,

grand, too grand for just a branch,

but maybe not too high and mighty

for royalty visiting a duke of Northumberland.

 

Now far more browsers than ever waited

on the platforms throng the old parcels

and waiting rooms, while a model train

trundles round with immaculate

timekeeping below the canopy of glass,

above the recycled volumes

of history, poetry, and old railway lines.