responsibility - and opportunity

The phone calls started a while ago. Normally from solicitors, but today from a  prospective buyer ...

They are always along the lines of 'I am thinking of buying a house in (S&D former station name). What are your plans and how long before trains are running?'

If nothing else it shows that people are beginning to take us seriously, and that the idea that the line will return is now becoming firmly fixed in the minds of at least some people.

And it's a difficult thing to answer. We have no plans or timescales for reinstatement, only a vague idea, because everything is basically in the hands of future events.

I do always stress that, even today when there are still alternatives, houses near stations always sell for more than those at a distance. So a railway station nearby is already a huge selling point.

Today's caller was more worried about heavy freights thundering past at the bottom of his garden. Of course eventually that will happen, but it may be decades yet.

I tried to explain that as the roads vanish he'll need the trains as much as anyone, he seemed to think he was somehow unique and would not need them!

I added that the track may not be back for ten or even twenty years, which seemed to please him, but will it really take that long? I'm beginning to wonder.

People are making life changing decsions around the future existence of the S&D. Surely that will convince even the doubters and dinosaurs that we are, to quite Take That, back for good ...