Wrapped securely within your liveried green
Refined golden-arched nameplate highlights your pedigree,
London North Eastern returning home
Non-stop, Kings Cross to Diesel City
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
Passing by Highbury, the Arsenal
through the long Potters Bar tunnel
Where pressure causes your ears to pop
Travelling quicker northward, abandoning the ‘Smoke,’
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
Country air chills flushing my cheeks red
Too close to the door’s open window,
The many-faceted shades of country green
merge in blinding speed to just one hue
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
I get bearings from station name plaques that whizz by
No sooner has one station pinpointed my location
When accompanied by Doppler’s sound effect, another hurtles past
Stevenage, Hitchen, Biggleswade, Sandy, St Neots, Huntingdon.
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
North, straight flight, javelin like
Soon I recognise vistas. I’m nearly home.
Abandoned brick pits awaiting development
Hapless football ground, KFC, Cathedral,
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
Slowly, then finally, we come to rest
Handle gripped, determinedly turned
I step onto the raised tarmacked platform.
Ticket in hand for inspection.
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep blows the conductor
Clackety, Click, Clackety, Click, Clackety, Click
Heads turn as this famous steam chariot
slowly pulls from our station, bound for York,
Billowed smoke and hot air, follow in a hazed wake
Wheeled Hermes, I thank you for my safe return.
Clackety Click, Clackety Click, Clackety Click
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