Since the first time I travelled on a train without my parents (I was 14 and, clearly in search of the high life, I went to Wigan with two friends to watch my football team Wrexham), I have seen the end of smoking on platforms, the demise of closed-door trains and the dreaded Pacer carriages, the rise of coffee shops and the 'innovation' of ticket gates.
Thirty years after that first journey (the engine was late and the ticket office at Chester, where we changed, was a Portakabin), I, as a visually impaired non-driver and travel writer, have walked, waited, ...
