I followed a grassy path out above the sea towards a headland. Even under low cloud, the views across the Glaslyn estuary and Snowdon range beyond were quite majestic. The wind was gusting and down below the sea battered the rocks in an impressively tempestuous way, but the rain at least held off and the air was sweet and fresh in that way you only get when you are beside the sea. The light was failing and I was afraid of ending up joining the waves on the rocks far below, so I headed back into town. When I got there, I discovered that the few businesses that had been open were now shut. Only one small beacon of halflight loomed from the enclosing darkness. I went up to see what it was and was interested to find that it was the southern terminus and operational HQ for the famous Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway.

 Interested to see the nerve centre of this organization which had caused me so much distress and discomfort earlier, I went in. Though it was well after five, the station bookshop was still open and liberally sprinkled with silent browsers, so I went in and had anose around. It was an extraordinary place, with shelf after shelf of books, all with titles like Railways of the Winion Valley and Maivddach Estuary and The Complete Encyclopaedia of Signal Boxes. There was a multivolume series of books called Trains in Trouble, each consisting of page after page of photographs of derailments, crashes and other catastrophes a sort of trainspotter's equivalent of a snuff movie, I suppose. For those seeking more animated thrills, there were scores of videos. I took down one at random, called The Hunslet and Hundreds Steam Rally 1993, which bore a bold label promising '50 Minutes of Steam Action!' Under that there was a sticker that said: 'Warning: Contains explicit footage of a Sturrock 060 Heavy Class coupling with a GWR Hopper.' Actually, I just made that last part up, but I did notice, with a kind of profound shock, that all the people around me were browsing with precisely the same sort of selfabsorbed, quiet breathing concentration that you would find in a porno shop and I suddenly wondered if there was an extra dimension to this trainspotting lark that had never occurred to me.

 According to a plaque on the wall in the ticket hall, the Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway was formed in 1832 and is the oldest still running in the world. I also learned from the plaque that the railway society has 6,000 members, a figure that staggers me from every possible direction. Though the last train of the day had finished its run some time ago, there was still a man in the ticket booth, so I went over and interrogated him quietly about the lack of coordination between the train and bus services in Blaenau. I don't know why, because I was charm itself, but he got distinctly huffy, as if I were being critical of his wife, and said in a petulant tone: 'If Gwynned Transport want people to catch the midday train from Blaenau, then they should have the buses set off earlier.'

 'But equally,' I persisted, 'you could have the train leave a few minutes later.'

 He looked at me as if I were being outrageously presumptuous, and said: 'But why should we?'

 And there, you see, you have everything that is wrong with these train enthusiast types. They are irrational, argumentative, dangerously fussy and often, as here, have an irritating little Michael Fish moustache that makes you want to stick out two forked fingers and pop them in the eyes. Moreover, thanks to my journalistic sleuthing in the bookshop, I think we can safely say that there is a prima facie case to presume that they perform unnatural acts with steam

 videos. For their own good, and for the good of society, they .should be taken away and interned behind barbed wire.

 I thought about making a citizen's arrest there and then ' I detain you in the name of Her Majesty the Queen for the offence of being irritatingly intractable about timetables, and also for having an annoying and inadequate little moustache' but I was feeling generous and let him go with a hard look and an implied warning that it would be a cold day in hell before I ventured anywhere near his railway again. I think he got the message.

 CHAPTER TWENTYONE

 IN THE MORNING, I WALKED TO PORTHMADOG STATION NOT THE Blaenau Ffestiniog let'splayattrains one, but the real British Rail one. The station was closed, but there were several people on the platform, all studiously avoiding each other's gaze and standing, I do believe, on the same spot on which they stood every morning. I am pretty certain of this because as I was standing there minding my own business, a man in a suit arrived and looked at first surprised and then cross to find me occupying what was evidently his square metre of platform. He took a position a few feet away and regarded me with an expression not a million miles from hate. How easy it is sometimes, I thought, to make enemies in Britain. All you have to do is stand in the wrong spot or turn your car round in their driveway this guy had NO TURNING written all over him or inadvertently take their seat on a train, and they will quietly hate you to the grave.

 Eventually a twocarriage Sprinter train came in and we all shuffled aboard. They really are the most comfortless, utilitarian, deeply unlovely trains, with their hardedged seats, their mystifyingly simultaneous hot and cold draughts, their harsh lighting and, above all, their noxious colour scheme with all those orange stripes and hopelessly jaunty chevrons. Why would anyone think that train passengers would like to be surrounded by a lot of orange, particularly first thing in the morning? I longed for one of those oldstyle trains that you found when I first came to Britain, the ones that had no corridors but consisted of just a series of selfcontained compartments, each a little world unto itself. There was always a frisson of excitement as you opened the carriage door because you never knew what you would find on the other side. There was something pleasingly intimate and random about sitting in such close proximity with total strangers. I remember once I was on one of these trains when one of the other passengers, a shylooking young man in a trench coat, was abruptly and lavishly sick on the floor it was during a flu epidemic and then had the gall to stumble from the train at the next station, leaving three of us to ride on into the evening in silence, with pinched faces and tuckedin toes and behaving, in that most extraordinary British way, as if nothing had happened. On second thoughts perhaps it is just as well that we don't have those trains any more. But I'm still not happy with the orange chevrons.

 We followed a coastal route past broad estuaries and craggy hills beside the grey, flat expanse of Cardigan Bay. The towns along the way all had names that sounded like a cat bringing up a hairball: Llywyngwril, Morfa Mawddach, Llandecwyn, Dyffryn Ardudwy. At Penrhyndeudraeth the train filled with children of all ages, all in school uniforms. I expected shouting and smoking and things to be flying about, but they were impeccably behaved, every last one of them. They all departed at Harlech and the interior suddenly felt empty and quiet quiet enough that I could hear the couple behind me conversing in Welsh, which pleased me. At Barmouth we crossed another broad estuary, on a ricketylooking wooden causeway. I had read somewhere that this causeway had been closed for some years and that Barmouth had until recently been the end of the line. It seemed a kind of miracle that BR had invested the money to repair the causeway and keep the line open, but I bet that if I were to come back in ten years, this trundling, halfforgotten line to Porthmadog will be in the hands of enthusiasts like those of the Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway and that some twit with a fussy little moustache will be telling me that I can't make a connection at Shrewsbury because it doesn't suit the society's timetable.