The lane runs under an abandoned branch line. Beyond the bridge’s moss and crumbling mortar, tarmac turns to shale that leads to the semis. 

Two dormer homes in a clearing in the pines. Built for forestry workers, then sold off twenty years ago to couples who’ve never left. 
    More or less.
    
Beyond is the East Coast mainline that rasps its patterns across the view from the lounge. Left to right. Right to left.
    The rooms in Don and Leslie’s house have changed little since he first saw the details in a market square display. With his own layout weaving its way around the loft, Don thought he’d found paradise twice, spotting the rolling stock through the French windows while running his own railway in all weathers. There was a plan for a different gauge in his old office.
All so much drier than a lonely platform.
    Leslie was happy to see Don busy and even more pleased to work long hours in the office while he laboured less and less on his computer, distracted by the vista up to the embankment. 
    But two years ago Leslie died.

To the right, Mary is also alone. Peter left his wife and daughter a while ago, just before Mary retired. Then Penny moved to Spain. He’d wanted them to settle somewhere ‘at the end of the line’ and, after the treadmill of running a school, it took a while for Mary to admit to herself that she was trapped in Peter’s leasehold fantasy. After three long winters it remained unsold, which didn’t stop him texting for updates.
    Meanwhile until the early hours she had to listen to Don’s television, or the hoovering. Pleasantries aside, she’d given up trying to talk to him.
    Then last year he stopped going out, apart from the odd car trip.

That afternoon the wind had been blowing showers in from the North Sea and across the fens. The woods were a grey smear, parallel to the trains. Mary was in and out of her garden, digging over her quadrant of borders while trying to ignore the stunted lawn next door. All that was left of Leslie’s hard work. Some man came to mow it now.
    Don had learnt to predict and log the passing trains by phone and app. Expresses. Rarer freight convoys. Even maintenance trucks.
    He didn’t need to listen out but would often tut at delays or disappearances.

But something was wrong. The train bound for Kings Cross was moving too slowly, too loudly. 
It took a full half a minute to derail, shaking and snarling, pitching and screaming, braking as its carriages began to ruck up against each other. The first two rumbled right off the rails and on down the low embankment, levelling a stretch of fence that was twice their length.  They wobbled for a moment as they tilted towards the horizontal.

Don saw the aftermath but didn’t know what to do. He tapped on the glass, then opened the French windows and called for Mary. No reply. Gone? He found his phone. Would the crash be on his news feed? He checked. Of course not, yet. What should he do? 
He texted a fellow rail buff.

Train’s derailed on our bit of mainline. What dyer reckon.

Then he heard Mary’s car edging slowly along the brown farm track beside her house and on around the field. What was she doing? It was dangerous. Idiotic.
    She should have kept the 4x4 when Peter went.
He paced to and from the kitchen checking his phone for news. 
No messages?!

Mary thought she would cover the distance quickly. In fact by March the track was at its stickiest and her tyres were slipping in the mud. 
Glancing up she saw the first people climbing out of the train. From a central carriage, a man and a woman in uniform. 
Slowing further as she approached the field’s edge, Mary noticed passengers carefully leaving from the same door, helping each other with the drop. Someone was passing down a push chair.
There was steam - or smoke - rising from that front section with no sign of anyone exiting.

Don was annoyed. Why didn’t Mary check with him before being so stupid? She knew nothing about trains. Why had she never remembered to give him her mobile number?
What was Ted doing? Should he contact another of his mates from the club? 
Between these thoughts he Googled ‘Train derailments in England’. Interesting, without actually telling him what he wanted to know. Or prompting him to what to do.
He texted Derek.

    ‘Are you local?’ one of the guards asked Mary. ‘I’m Fiona.’
    Mary nodded and Fiona handed over her phone. ‘Can you speak to the emergency services?’
    The operator wanted a clear picture of the terrain around the crash. The access routes, any flooding or muddy areas. Animals. Obstructions. 
    For those few moments Mary was in charge as if back at work. She described what she saw and knew so well. Apart from Don and a couple of farmers no-one else could do this. 
    She pointed out that it would be dark in an hour or two.
    The voice on the phone sounded impressed.
    Mary handed it back. ‘Fiona. I live in the house to the left. I’m going to drive back, put on the kettle and dig out some biscuits. Send anyone who’s up to it. If you think that’s OK’.
    Then she added, ‘I’ll try and get someone to wait outside the house and direct the traffic around to you.’

    It was a good plan, but when she knocked on Don’s door he seemed not to hear. She tapped on the kitchen window but gave up when she found the side gate locked.
    Don was still waiting for his mates to get back to him. And trying to stop himself bidding on ebay. You had to get your hands on the good stuff.
    God knows what was going on out there.