Toot Toot! All aboard for edition 9 of Laughing Stock, where Rich Walker makes the case to bin off HS2 in favour of letting him spend an extra hour with his thoughts and music, and £3 less on a bus trip to Stockport…
Towards the end of Anna Funder’s excellent Stasiland, she perfectly sums up why I adore a train journey:
‘I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of; for this moment I know where I am going.’
Until the c-bomb hit in early 2020, I was pretty much a weekly regular on the Manchester to London train due to work. I have spent countless hours sat on those lightly stained red or blue Avanti seats (formerly Virgin, RIP) up and down the line that connects these two great cities. I knew the best seat to sit at (the one in front of the luggage rack, with no one behind you and a full length window to gaze out of), how to navigate the dreaded off peak Euston rush (I will not give up my secrets), which mini bottles of M&S train wine are the best. With the exception of those (actually quite rare) times when there was an excessive delay, I enjoyed every minute of it.
I miss the time spent on them dearly. For me it is a nonplace. The journey is 2 hour 6 mins according to official timings, and that 2 hours 6 mins is pure bliss. Phone and internet signal are intermittent (don’t let the ‘free wifi’ claims entice you, it’s (perhaps purposefully?) shit and they know it), meaning it’s relatively difficult to keep in contact with people, be that from the office or from personal notifications pinging on your screen. Of course, there is the pretense that I’ve downloaded some work project onto my laptop to keep me productive, but mainly what I do is open said laptop, (just in case someone from work happens to see me, and then they can’t stasi-like report that fact that I was doing fuck all on the journey) ignore it, put my earphones in and have 2 hours 6 minutes of me time. I may bring a book or a guilty, three editions ago copy of LRB with me to spend some time with, but the majority of the journey is spent looking out of the window and listening to music. It is time suspended. I am anonymous and invisible to everyone apart from the conductor. I have time to think and to not think. I am in my very happy nonplace.
The music is important. Gazing out of the window, you pass a huge chunk of England (162 miles worth). From urban decay to golden fields of rapeseed, past power stations and quaint villages, through national landmarks and non-descript, all but forgotten post industrial towns, you see it all. You cannot throw The Armed’s impressive but far too aggressive new album Ultrapop on, it would not work. What you need is a soundtrack, music that will enable you to both think and not think, music that is a background to the rolling film outside. Ambient music is your friend here. Stick on the extraordinary Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations in the House & Techno Age, 1993-1997 or the transportative Eyes of Fate by Not Waving & Romance and watch the world roll by. Lose yourself in nothing but suspended time and the promise of your destination. Think about the future. Contemplate your past. Think about nothing at all. It is 2 hours 6 minutes that can feel simultaneously like 4 hours or 30 minutes.
This super idealistic nonplace though is borne of my privilege. Not everyone gets to travel for two hours during the working day without the anxiety of a commute, the pressure to be productive, the space to think and not think. It is not romantic or romanticised. It is more The Armed than Ki Oni. Outside of London (and to some extent within), public transport in the UK is underfunded, expensive, old, uncomfortable and overcrowded. It is not a luxurious experience, it is something to tolerate because of the need to get somewhere, mainly to work, at a time specified by your employer which also happens to be the same time as everyone else who lives in your area. There is a thought that in a post-covid, flexible working world the overcrowding may be somewhat alleviated by less office workers traveling into city centre hubs. Yet it will not benefit the so-called ‘unskilled’ workers who clean, serve in and run our shops, cafes, restaurants and offices. They will still have to struggle into city centres at the same time as each other, fighting for space on ancient trains and freezing buses. Nationalisation and proper investment in local rail and bus networks could help improve this situation for the millions of people who rely on public transport for their livelihood and their ability to support their families, but instead we are getting the £100bn shit show that is HS2.
HS2 is a massive political vanity project. Started in 2009 in the death throes of New Labour, and confirmed in 2010 by the fledgling evil that was the coalition government (austerity!), costs have spiralled and construction dates have been pushed so far into the future that it’s more likely we’ll be levitating our way between Manchester and London on a Richard Branson funded hyperloop before we cut 30 mins off a train journey between the two. In a 2019 report for the New Economics Foundation, Director of Policy Andrew Pendleton said:
“Investment in the UK’s railways is urgently needed, but HS2 is trickle-down transport policy. It will be used by the wealthiest travellers, intensify the north-south investment divide and is a standalone project that simply does not integrate well enough into the existing network. It’s an expensive answer in search of a question.”
If the line ever gets completed, it will take one hour off the journey time from Manchester to London. But who does this benefit? The answer, of course, is London and the wealthy. According to the NFE report, 40% of the passenger benefits that underline the economic case HS2 will go to London, with just 18% to the North West and 12% to the Midlands. Richer people use long range train travel far more than poorer people - 24 times more trips for the top 20% of earners where there are two adults in the household vs the bottom 20%. It may also result in those people who actually hate living in London but have to be there for work moving further up the country, bringing their inflated wealth into less affluent but desirable areas of the North and Midlands, pricing locals out of the housing market. Not even mentioning the massive environmental consequences of building this behemoth too. The report concludes that ‘just’ £55bn could improve vast swaths of the non-London train network and bring much better economic results to people across the North and Midlands. But fuck them, some people need to get to London in less time whilst listening to Coldplay and emailing their undelings to rejig the slides on the presentation they’re going to give.
Public transport is dear to me, as someone who cannot drive (I know, I know). Selfishly, I do not want an hour cut off my journey to London. If I wanted to be closer, I’d move back there. I want my two hours of quiet contemplation, my big clunking metal bubble of protection ferrying me serenely across the country whilst I listen to Grace Ferguson and wonder what I’m going to have for tea. What I do want is the 3 mile return bus journey on the 192 between my house and Stockport to cost less than £5 (in Andy we trust), a journey that would cost around £1.50 in London and is perfect for listening to aggressive music like The Armed as you rattle down the A6. I want better transport equality across the UK, so people can get to work or the countryside without worrying that they won’t be able to top up their electricity. I want better, not faster.
A Non-exhaustive List of Grade A Train Albums
A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen
Abul Mogard - In Immobile Air
Ann Margaret Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials
Burial - Untrue (more of a night bus one tbf)
Collen - A flame my love, a frequency
Elori Saxi - The Blue of Distance
Emeka Ogboh - Beyond the Yellow Haze
Grace Ferguson - Voler
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Julianna Barwick - Healing Is a Miracle
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love Is a Stream
Leo Svirsky - Rivers Without Banks
Leif - Loom Dream
Loscil - Monument Builders
Maria w Horn - Epistasis
Mary Lattimore - Silver Ladders
Nivhek - After it’s own death/ Walking in a spiral towards the house
Not Waving & Romance - Eyes of Fate
Pantha du Prince - Conference of Trees
Pub - Do You Ever Regret Pantomime
Ryuichi Sakamoto - async
Sarah Davachi - Cantus, Descant
Sigur Ros - ( )
Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Tatiana Lisovskaya - At Eternity’s Gate
Ulla Straus - Big Room
Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations in the House & Techno Age, 1993-1997
Each week we will share some tracks that the contributers to Laughing Stock currently have on heavy rotation. You can follow the rolling playlist on Apple or Spotify.
ICYMI: More from Laughing Stock
Edition 8 - Connah Roberts channeling Adiran Chiles on Karaoke
Edition 7 - Rich Walker on nihilism in music
Edition 6 - Connah Roberts on producers of imagination
Edition 5 - Sam Hartford on Spotify’s all seeing eye
Edition 4 - Rich Walker on how amazing organ music is
Edtion 3 - Will Palmer on Music as Muscle Memory
Edition 2 - Connah Roberts on Arctic Monkeys and Quantitative Easing
Edition 1 - Rich Walker on Dua Lipa and the new pop vanguard
If you are interested in contributing to future editions of Laughing Stock, please DM either @dickiewalker or @connahr