Constructing New Ghosts

The drool-flecked shadow of Beeching still looms large over the UK’s rail network. Beeching’s talons did for some 3,500 railways stations, of which choo-choo expert Christian Wolmar reckons a third would be of real use today. There goes the environment.

Beeching created a host of ghost stations. As your freshly rebranded 8:14 swishes past, there it is - an incongruously flat space, overgrown with grass, reclaimed by creepers and brush. A tell-tale car park space, maybe even a derelict waiting room and ticket office. Hell’s that ticking sound?! Nothing more sinister than phantom commuters, tutting like metronomes as their own 8:14 is announced to be five minutes late.

And perhaps we are in the business this year of creating new ghosts up and down the country. Just as ghosts stations haunt our suburbs and villages, so on the high street, I guess the new ghosts will be the forgotten branches of banks…

Expect high streets otherwise lively with debt collection agencies, discount supermarkets and charity shops to be blighted by desolate former banks, five pound notes blowing disconsolately, leaf-like, across deserted counters before settling on yellowing cardboard cut-outs advertising the latest 0% credit card.

That’ll do nicely.