The signal is green for an open mic night of poetry about railways, to be held in a railways refreshment room full of trains memorabilia. Railway Lines, part of the Sowerby Bridge arts festival, is scheduled for Thursday 12 December in the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms in the former ticket office at Sowerby Bridge station in West Yorkshire. Railway poetry is very much in vogue at the moment. Last month Faber published a new anthology, Train Songs, edited by Sean O’Brien and Don Paterson, that includes the song lyrics of Tom Waits, Robert Johnson, and Flanders and Swann, as well as well-known favourites by Philip Larkin, WH Auden, Betjeman and Edward Thomas. Railways Lines will start at 7.30pm, and organiser Freda Davis does not want the evening entirely dominated by misty-eyed steam anoraks. She said: “Nostalgia for past glories is OK but comments on the East Coast line are also acceptable.” Contact: freda247davis@gmail.com. More details and Map