I did a lot of thinking about my love of railways today. I’ve been drawn to them since I was a child, and although I did have something of a fascination with trains for a while, that’s not really what it’s about. Even my attraction to the trains themselves was more about the infrastructure surrounding rail travel. The signals, the scheduling, the way it was all remotely monitored and controlled. Even the human elements of train travel felt cold and robotic. People arrived at the platform just before a train was scheduled, and although the driver might wait a little while for a jogging latecomer, they wouldn’t wait for long. A chime would sound through the speakers lining the ceilings of each car, the doors would swoosh shut in unison, and that was that. I thought that was scary and cool. But I didn’t really care whether I saw a train or not. The things that travel along the railway are incidental. The long parallel beams themselves were the attraction.

As an adult, I still love the aesthetic of railways, and the way I feel when I walk along them. I feel free and uplifted when I deviate from the streets and footpaths, and the drone of the traffic becomes muted behind buildings and tall fences. So I suppose the privacy and sensory isolation is part of it. There are no cars, no pedestrians, no one pulling out of their driveway or unloading goods from a truck. I’m not being advertised to on the railway. There’s no point putting up signs and billboards there. The only information written on sheet metal is the kind a train driver would need to see. It’s all terse and functional. No one wants me to sign up for sports betting or buy a McDonalds meal deal on the railway. Capitalism ceases to exist.

There’s a feeling that you’re getting away with something. Going into the back rooms that you’re not supposed to see, and in some cases very literally. Train lines often run through blocks of residential properties, exposed back yards visible either over or straight through the dilapidated fences. Perhaps the people who live right against the train lines don’t feel their privacy is being invaded such that it’s worth raising or repairing these fences. That or they can’t afford to. I don’t voyeuristically stare into these people’s lives, but I catch glimpses. I admire the myriad ways these people make the most of their little patches of land. Humans will find a way to create beauty in the humblest of spaces, and this gives me hope when it feels like very few care about beauty at all.

You can’t take a wrong turn on the railway, nor will you be overwhelmed by choice. This way, that way, or stay right here. Those are your choices. There’s a feeling of freedom in this too, if you’re the sort of person to overthink things. There are plenty of opportunities to exit the train line, so I’m not trapped. I’m free to not make decisions, until I decide that I would like to make decisions again.

Railways are usually lined with overgrown grasses. They’re not interfering with anything mechanically, and there’s no one to complain about them looking unsightly, so they just grow and grow, wherever they can. On top of that, the lack of shop fronts and foot traffic leaves them litter free for long stretches. No fast food packaging, cigarette butts or plastic bags. Humans have been here. They built things. But they haven’t lived here. It’s industrial, but clean.

Then there’s the darker allure. The knowledge that if I pick the right corner, lie down across the tracks, face down with my neck rested on one of the beams, I could leave this life at any time. Of course I know the statistics of failed attempts, messy, drawn–out successful ones, and the devastating trauma that train drivers have to live with when people choose this way out. It’s a comforting fantasy nonetheless. If I put all of those complications aside, this feels like freedom too.

I would say that more people should walk down their local railway some time and see the world this way, but truthfully I hope they don’t. So much of the world feels inaccessible, hostile, or overbearing, but the railway is just for me.