You’ve come from somewhere;

                       you’re going somewhere else.

 

On a wall in this minster of stations

is a map of the North Eastern Railway

around 1900. Lines criss-crossing

North Yorkshire: Coxwold, Ampleforth,

Helmsley, Hovingham, Slingsby,

Kirbymoorside. Amotherby,

Wetwang, Fangfoss.

 

Memorials to that railway chancer

George Hudson. Puffed-up hopes,

delusions of grandeur?

Or just a desire to make connections

with a wider world?  All gone, gone.

Casualties of economics, and Beeching,

the roads minister’s right-hand man.

 

Yet, still, from York you can reach

Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford,

Harrogate, Edinburgh, Aberdeen,

Selby, Middlesbrough,

Southampton, Penzance, Hull, Reading,

Preston, Newcastle, Sunderland

(via Hartlepool). And London King’s Cross.