The bend widens out, and before me lies a toy train platform, built lifesized.
I crunch up, moving from a path of gravel ballast onto sloping wooden planking. Before and behind me, the rails curve lazily away through the narrow valley, high escarpments on either side pressing inwards and making a sweaty day even closer. Barring the steel lines set ablaze by the sunshine it’s a natural-looking landscape – into which Newton Dale Halt has been dropped like a shoddy special effect.
On either end of the wooden stop there are inward-facing signs, both unreadable as I approached along the trackside path. Upon making the top of the platform, I discover they say “Danger: Do Not Walk Along The Trackside Path”. Great. Cursing my knack for finding turnings where none exist, I unshoulder my rucksack and sit down on the moss-greased planking.
Silence falls, roaring in my ears as I strain to hear the approach of a train returned from the dead.
