Slack Jawed Babbling

One interpretation of this post is that it is a simple tale of commuting. Although as journeys to work go, a 36-hour round-trip on the Caledonian Sleeper via Fort William to my office in Camden was a little out of the ordinary. If nothing else, it was a refreshing punctuation in the daily grind of stuffed peak-hour trains and the odorous Victoria Line hell. That journey, back in 2011, was my first expedition on the overnight service to Scotland.   The Caledonian Sleeper remains one of only two such overnight franchises in the UK. The other is through the West Country to Penzance, on the  Night Riviera . I grabbed a berth in 2018.  Both services, having endured perilous existences and operated under constant threat of closure for years, seem to be seeing renaissances. I’ve enjoyed the sleeper jaunt Scotland on a number of occasions in the dozen years since my initial trip, most recently on brand spanking new rolling stock via Glasgow to Ayr last year. But nothing will ever feel