Long train home...

I'm not quite a binocular-toting train-spotter but there's something peaceful about train stations and platforms. The liminal space of being neither here nor there that just appeals.

As a kid, I travelled solo by train every day to and from school and college to meet friends/boyfriends. I came across some of my life's most unique, frightening, and lonely people.

I wasn’t too fond of those journeys. The smell of burning engine oil clung to my clothes, cold skin, and wet hair curled around my white school shirt's collar. The long waits with strangers glancing at me, wondering why such a young girl was travelling alone, then — teeth glinting — questionable kindness.

Manchester Piccadilly. Confusing AF unless you know exactly where you’re headed… By Natalie Persoglio

There’s this unspoken breaking down of boundaries and etiquette when travelling. As people lean into you and press their legs against yours, you're not sure what their intentions are. They ask you personal questions and breathe loudly into your ears. They wouldn’t behave this way anywhere else, but on a train — it blurs.

There’s something about travelling, that gap between belonging and searching, time to think, alone with your soul among the cancellations and delays on slick wet platforms.

During this time, I scribbled away on a hardback notepad leaning against my wet knees, writing myself into another world that lay beyond the huddled silhouettes of overcoats and cumbersome rucksacks.

When I travel back to these well-trodden platforms now and stand exactly where I would’ve then, I can sense an echo of myself, like ghostly versions of me over the years.

Manchester Oxford Rd, platform 5, by Natalie Persoglio.

There were good people too. A man in gold-rimmed glasses once handed me a stack of hardback books about New York as he skipped between connecting trains. Earlier that week, I'd mentioned my obsession with the city in a brief conversation on a shared journey. I never saw him again.

The silence on a train platform is unlike any other. A sense of sadness hits you unexpectedly as trains sigh - exhale - in the distance.

Or maybe that is just me.

Manchester Oxford Road, platform 2. By Natalie Persoglio