7:19 am. York. Daybreak.

Well, not so much daybreak as the grey and blue before dawn. I'm sure it began while we waited in the station -- it was still blackest night when we left at ten to seven -- but I didn't really see it till the train had reached the edge of town, where things get more spread out; there are too many buildings where the nice ones are. Tesco's isn't exactly the last glimpse you want to see of a cathedral city that dates back to Roman times, but you take what you can get.

There's a certain finality about departing by train. You used to get it with airplanes, but now that nobody can see you off at the gate anymore, there's no cause to press your nose to the tiny double window and try to make out the person who dropped you off waving from inside the terminal. On an airplane the only motivation these days is to settle in and fall asleep as quickly as possible; by car, you can always turn around, or there's always some rationale behind putting off leaving ("If I take off now I'll sleep in and miss work; makes more sense to leave at 3am and go straight to the office" -- you laugh, but I've done it, twice); but the train waits for no one, and when you leave you get to watch the focal point of your journey stand around watching you back through tinted glass, then wave and head off when the train pulls out. And then you don't look out the window for a while.

7:40 am. Leeds.

Ugly place, Leeds. I recognised the church tower with the clock in it, although the grim 1980s gantry-and-escalator design of the station -- like something out of Pink Floyd's The Wall -- escaped me last time. Vile as it is, though, I have to appreciate the engineering that goes into a system of travel that moves as many people as it does with the degree of security we can count on. When the worst thing I can complain about is that a mode of travel is boring and ugly, that isn't much.

(This is perhaps too charitable toward British Rail, who are apparently perpetually late, and toward Lufthansa, who are uncomfortable and incompetent. It is certainly too charitable toward Amtrak. But still.)

Last night, just for grins, we looked up how much it costs to take the Trans-Siberian Railroad. A first-class berth from Moscow to Beijing goes surprisingly cheap -- either $250 or $350, I forget which -- and a second-class sleeper even less, like $62. That'd be one hell of a journey. Fly to Moscow, train through Russia -- break the journey at Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, all sorts of places -- then Mongolia, then China. Get down to Shanghai, then by boat to Kobe, then up through Japan to Vladivostok, then back via the northern branch of the railroad -- or across to the Aleutians and somehow through Alaska, perhaps down to Seattle by boat and then home. $3000 worth of travel, easy, but what a trip.

I must get a job which allows me long vacations. Maybe there's something to university research after all.

8-something. Dewsbury. Hills, stonework, Georgian-style terraced housing. Probably Georgian full stop, at that. Past the station, industrial wasteland.

Note to self: buy a watch. Maybe.

8-something later. Huddersfield. Industrial wasteland before the station this time, plus terraced housing of some later, less ornamental vintage. It's terraced housing that tries to hide among the warehouses. "Don't look at us," it seems to say. "We won't impress you." It's right.

Just passed another church with a clock in the tower. It's 8:16.

I could probably handle living in the Pennines if they had more trees, but they don't, and I expect they never will. From a distance they look like a crazy quilt and I can't quite make out the seams. Too thick for just fences. Hedge? (Later: ) Walls. Dark gray stone, and not terribly high, but visible from quite some ways off.

So much is unassuming that is absolutely essential, and so much that is beautiful is useless. Yet I wish more useful places were like universities: arching, elegant temples to theory and practice.

8-something later still. Stalybridge. Lots of steam from chimneys, round and square, of all sizes. Not much else to say about Stalybridge.

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