Neil's News

ScotRail

10 April 2003

The commute by train between Inverness and Elgin is a good way to start and end each day. It gives me time to think about questions whose answers are 42. I've also been able to do some reading and to dust off and update some projects which have lain dormant since high school (if only there were a Radio Shack nearby so that I could go beyond planning and do some actual implementation). At both ends of the journey there are features which have caught my attention:

• The Inverness train station is home to a pair of cats. Diesel and Gasket live in a cavity under the main platform. They're well looked after by the station staff. Although they spend the day sitting at the buffers watching the passengers go by, none of the passengers I've watched have spotted them.
• The Elgin train station is next to a switch (pictured on the right) which connects the local freight yard to the Inverness/Aberdeen main line. The controls for this switch look like something out of Charles Babbage's workshop. It has taken me a month to figure out how the system works.

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