Mail rail

I attended today’s Show and Tell in the office but I really had an ulterior motive for being in that part of London. I was due at the Mail Rail at 6pm to ‘Walk The Rails’.  Back when the museum first opened I sponsored a sleeper on the part of the Mail Rail that was to open to the public.  It came with a chance to ‘Walk The Rails’ and see your sleeper.  I’d didn’t participate in the walks in some of the early sessions and then the pandemic stopped the events.

This was one of the first time the opportunity had come up and so, a couple for months ago, I signed up and, today turned up.  When I arrived my name was not on the list of attendees.  It transpired that this was not a big deal to get into the event - I had emailed confirmation - but it meant that nobody had researched which sleeper was mine.

In the end this turned the event into a lot of fun. First I looked around the Mail Rail museum - which I was very familiar with from my days volunteering - and then took a ride on the mini underground trains that tell the story of the network.  Then, after our little group had donned high vis jackets and hard hats, we started to walk the rails with the organisers urging everybody to look our for ‘Jon’s sleeper’. I don’t know how many people actually did it but, by the time we were in the last 200s, I was beginning to think we’d missed it. But at 309 it was seen and I was called over.  I’d resigned myself to not finding it and just enjoying the experience walking through the tunnels and looking at the unused parts of the lines through the gates (which are there, apparently, to stop people who access the tracks further up from getting into the museum) but I did get a twinge of excitement knowing that it was there and, everyday, museum visitors ride a train across this part of the track not knowing my name is below.