The daylight disappeared and suddenly the artificial lights inside the train seemed so much brighter. The sound changed too, because the tunnel meant that the noises of the train were reflected back, so the sad wail of the engine and the rising grind of the wheels became louder and more threatening.

Suddenly, the people inside the train who had been projecting themselves outside into the lush green hills and on pleasant riverside walks with joyful dogs, were once more confined to the metal carriage. Conversations that had flowed freely became self-conscious and the tiktiktik of the headphones became instantly more annoying.

Natural light spilled once more into the carriage and the passengers collectively breathed a sigh of relief. Their breath would be amongst the hills and the fields, not stuck inside with the damp, the stones and the blackness.

The final tunnel was approaching. The passengers who did this route frequently knew that it was the longest in Europe. The line to Cleethorpes had three tunnels, each longer than the last. The passengers who hadn’t been on this line before, picked up on the subconscious tension of the others.

These tunnels were dug by hand, rudimentary machines helped, but this portal into the netherworld was crafted by man. An engineer looked at the expense of taking the trains over the surrounding hills and decided that the way out was through.

The men who made this tunnel created a new space, where none existed before. They were pioneers in spirit and practice, with every drop of the pick that rattled their shoulders they created more of this new place than before. When they entered the tunnel at the start of the working day they only had a meagre light that they carried with them. These would frequently fail, leaving them reliant on the light that others carried.

As we enter this tunnel, on this journey today the light seems dim in those around. We are no longer pioneers. New spaces are not created any more. We illuminate ourselves and fail to even share that light with those closest to us. The tunnel should claim us, for we have lost our way.