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Britain
英國(guó)版塊
Trains——Railing against modernity
火車，與現(xiàn)代化抗衡的鐵軌
The meaning of rural railway lines
鄉(xiāng)村鐵路的意義
IN THE SILENT ticket office, beneath the half-moon windows of the booths, a large green sign announces “OKEHAMPTON” to an empty room.
在售票亭的半月窗下，一個(gè)空蕩蕩的房間里掛著一個(gè)巨大的綠色牌子，上面寫著“奧克漢普頓”。
On the platform, a faded poster reads "DEVON—Travel by rail".
站臺(tái)上，一張褪色的海報(bào)上寫著“德文郡——乘火車旅行”。
Those reading it have had little chance to do so.
那些看到它的人幾乎沒有機(jī)會(huì)這樣做。
The last passenger train left Okehampton on June 3rd 1972.
最后一列旅客列車于1972年6月3日離開奧克漢普頓。
The town turned out to mourn: the mayor stood by, holding a wreath.
鎮(zhèn)上的人們紛紛哀悼：市長(zhǎng)手捧花環(huán)站在一旁。
On the line, between the sleepers, the grass started to grow.
在這條線上，枕木之間，草都開始長(zhǎng)出來了。
But Okehampton is changing.
但奧克漢普頓正在發(fā)生變化。
New steel tracks gleam beneath the platform; diggers toil in the car park.
新的鋼軌在站臺(tái)下閃閃發(fā)光；挖掘機(jī)在停車場(chǎng)里辛勤工作。
The station is being reopened as part of the government’s "Restoring Your Railway" fund, launched in January last year to keep a manifesto promise.
該站正在重新開放，作為政府去年一月啟動(dòng)的“修復(fù)鐵路”基金的一部分，目的是信守宣言承諾。
The aim of the scheme is, as the transport secretary Grant Shapps explained, to "reverse catastrophic cuts to the rail network primarily led by the Beeching axe".
正如交通部長(zhǎng)格蘭特·夏普斯解釋的那樣，該計(jì)劃的目的是“扭轉(zhuǎn)由比奇鐵路停運(yùn)潮帶來的鐵路網(wǎng)的災(zāi)難性削減”。
Some 141 bids have been made; 25 have been successful.
大約有141次投標(biāo)，其中25次成功。
Okehampton is the first to reopen.
奧克漢普頓是第一家重新開業(yè)的。
Eleven miles of track have been laid with Brunellian briskness in four weeks.
在四周內(nèi)，布魯內(nèi)利快速地鋪設(shè)了11英里的鐵軌。
The first train arrives on November 20th at 7.10am.
第一班火車將于11月20日上午7點(diǎn)10分到達(dá)。
In 1963 a report by Richard Beeching, chairman of the British Railways Board, earmarked 5,000 miles of track and 2,363 stations for closure.
1963年，英國(guó)鐵路委員會(huì)主席理查德·比奇在一份報(bào)告中提出要關(guān)閉5000英里的鐵軌和2363個(gè)車站。
To this day, it is seen less as a piece of bureaucracy than as an act of "infamy"; its cuts "a wound that hasn’t healed", according to Stewart Francis, a former chairman of the Rail Passengers' Council.
據(jù)鐵路乘客委員會(huì)前主席斯圖爾特·弗朗西斯稱，到今天為止，它仍然被視為一種“恥辱”，而不是一種官僚主義；鐵路的傷口是一個(gè)“尚未愈合的傷口”。
On the Beeching "wound", Okehampton's 11 miles of shiny new track are a mere sticking plaster.
在比奇的“傷口”上，奧克漢普頓11英里長(zhǎng)的閃閃發(fā)光的新軌道只不過是一塊橡皮膏。
But to see this in terms of pure numbers is to miss the point.
但是如果只看數(shù)字，并沒有抓住問題要害。
More than sleepers and steel were lost.
損失的不止是枕木和鋼材。
"Railways have a strange position in the British psyche,"says John Preston, a professor of rail transport at the University of Southampton.
南安普頓大學(xué)的鐵路運(yùn)輸學(xué)教授約翰·普雷斯頓說：“鐵路在英國(guó)人心目中的地位很奇怪?！?/p>
"A lot of rural lines disappeared that were emblematic of a way of life…for which there was a lot of nostalgia,"he notes.
他還提到：“許多象征著一種生活方式的鄉(xiāng)村線路消失了……許多人對(duì)此有懷舊之情”。
The new line is less about travelling through Devon than about travelling through time.
這條新線路與其說是穿越德文郡，不如說是穿越時(shí)間。
Lots of infrastructure is prosaic.
很多基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施都是平淡無奇的。
In Britain trains become poetry, their lines not just crossing the land, but running on into the literature of Robert Louis Stevenson, John Betjeman and W.H.Auden.
在英國(guó)，火車變成了詩(shī)歌，它們的詩(shī)句不僅穿越了大地，還與羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森、約翰·貝杰曼和奧登的文學(xué)作品交織在一起。
Restoring railways nods to this fictional England, a place of branch lines and straight backs, railway porters and station masters; an England paused, like the train in Edward Thomas's poem "Adlestrop", in the late June of national memory.
恢復(fù)鐵路是對(duì)文學(xué)作品中的英格蘭致敬，這個(gè)地方有支線和直背，有鐵路搬運(yùn)工和站長(zhǎng)；就像愛德華·托馬斯詩(shī)歌《阿德勒斯特羅普》中的火車一樣，英格蘭的國(guó)民記憶在六月下旬停了下來。
But poetry, while nice, has never been particularly profitable.
但是，詩(shī)歌雖然很好，但從來沒有特別賺錢。
It remains to be seen whether these lines will be.
這些線路將會(huì)發(fā)展成什么樣還有待觀察。
There could hardly be a worse time for them to open: in the first covid-19 lockdown passenger numbers fell by around 90% and "the post-covid demand path is not yet clear", says Mr Preston.
普雷斯頓說，對(duì)他們來說，這幾乎是最糟糕的開放時(shí)機(jī)：在第一次新冠肺炎封鎖中，乘客數(shù)量下降了90%左右，而且這條線路的后續(xù)需求還不清楚。
Still, in Okehampton the locals seem pleased.
盡管如此，奧克漢普頓的當(dāng)?shù)厝怂坪鹾芨吲d。
Becky Tipper, the Network Rail manager in charge of the reopening, was surprised when, as her workers started laying the track, "a crowd of people" turned out once again.
讓負(fù)責(zé)重新開通的鐵路網(wǎng)經(jīng)理貝基·蒂珀感到驚訝的是，她的工人們開始鋪設(shè)鐵軌時(shí)，“一群人”再次出現(xiàn)。
This time, no wreaths. Instead, says Ms Tipper, they started clapping.
蒂珀女士說，這一次，沒有花環(huán)，只有掌聲。
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