Gricer

The train was stuffed full of journalists and gricers, as railway enthusiasts are pejoratively termed. Some of the gricers, earnest, fresh-faced young men, almost to a person, who cut their milk teeth on Hornby trains, had booked on this train two years ago.

Such an eclectic mix of rolling stock also created the movement of standing train spotters and inspired the early gricers, those enthusiastic train photographers.

This Delphi of railway enthusiasm, this holy grail for gricers, has a lure at least as strong as its grander contemporaries such as the Settle & Carlisle or West Highland Line, which were saved from closure and are still alive today.

Betjeman, who was a bit of a gricer, wrote: "I know of no greater pleasure for elevenses in London than to sit in this tea place and watch the trains arrive and depart."