Britain's only supersonic rail journey, taking commuters from Manchester to London Euston in under 10 minutes, has been cancelled by the Office of the Rail Regulator in next year's timetable changes.
The imaginary service, operated by 13-year-old Gavin Spectacles from Crewe on his Hornby OO-gauge train set, was axed after repeated pleas from his mum.
"He should be playing football across the road in the Rec instead of sitting in the attic watching them things go round and round," she said. "He's getting anaemic."
However, a Hornby spokes-locomotive lashed out at the rail regulator's decision, saying: "This is precisely the type of muddle-headed thinking in Whitehall which is destroying Britain's model railways - especially as Gavin had just placed a big order with us for a 1964 Diesel Multiple Unit and a cardboard model of Bristol Temple Meads station."
Gavin himself was unavailable for comment, saying he was busy guiding the 10.36 stopping service to Haslemere through Clapham Junction and that it would be "more than his job's worth" were there to be a snarl up.
There was some consolation for make-believe rail mogul Gavin when a public service recruiter offered him a senior position at the Department of Transport.
"Mr Spectacles is exactly the type of perverse, pettifogging nitwit who has headed up the civil service for the past two centuries and made Britain the country it is today," said the agent.
"He can join us as soon as he gets an Oxbridge degree in the most useless and irrelevant subject that they teach."
image from pixabay
