I find the sound of a heavily-laden freight train comforting: as an infant, waking in the night, I would often hear the diesel locos labouring along the line across the fields, hauling thirty heaped wagons of coal from colliery to power station…
I only chose to visit Morioka because it's on the shinkansen line, around half-way between where I was the day before and where I was going the next day…
When I was young, I used to enjoy the hushed reverence with which Radio 3 presenters treated music. The music would end, and there were a few moments of complete silence, before the announcer would murmur the details of the…