My iPhone has the eye of a Victorian gentleman. Its "panorama" setting cannot produce the panoramic perception necessary to train travel. Like a Victorian it suffers from railway brain, a form of neuraesthenia brought on by travelling at speed. While my eyes, superbly modern instruments, can flit seamlessly across the scene, the phone camera judders and jumps, nervously twitching and shuddering. Its tiny electronic eye cannot keep up with the speed of the train and it confuses trees with pylons. Sometimes, poor old colonial, it looks out on the alien industrial landscape and fancies it sees a beautiful romantic vista, the Alps or the Black Forest. I pamper to its delusions, and feed it ploughed fields and housing estates, sub-stations and shunting yards.

BACK