I've already posted about my "farewell" to Northampton and the moment the finality of it hit me as the train pulled out of the railway station, southbound, to Milton keynes: the irony of cheap tickets to go north!

I think part of the significance of the moment was that so many significant events in, and stages of, my life began with train journeys from this station, on a small branch line in the English Midlands.

My earliest conscious memory, was a family trip to London, which must have been in the late 1960s.  I recall the collection thing for St Christopher's Railway Orphanage, and a little courtyard garden where, much later a cafe would be found.  It was exciting, this trip! I recall wanting to see Piccadilly Circus because I was sure there would be clowns and trapeze artists!  I remember on that, or maybe another, trip going to London Zoo where my two youngest siblings rode round in a bright yellow, hired pushchair, and among other animals we saw Chi Chi the panda.  Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, The Embankment, Horseguards, Kensington Gardens... these and many more we visited by train.

I remember a school trip to the Natural History and Science Museums with our teachers herding thirty-odd nine and ten year olds on and off the trains, via the underground to South Kensington and back again on a hot summer's day.  And another trip, the first year I was at secondary school, to Boulogne which involved two lots of trains, and crossing London by tube.

There were a couple of trips to Glasgow to visit grandparents - change at Rugby, change at Crew - and the hope that it would be a "corridor" train where we could claim a whole six seat compartment to ourselves...

Teen years, and here I departed with a friend, as part of an "initiative test" for the Girls' Brigade Queen's Award, that required us to travel unaccompanied to London - easier for us than for many I suspect.  And over the next couple of years would be a similar trip for a Duke of Edinburgh's Award course in Bexhill on Sea.  University interviews in Birmingham, Manchester and London all required me to travel from here (and memorably, the return journey from Manchester saw me get on the wrong train and create my own diversionary route via Stoke on Trent!).

Whilst once or twice taking coaches because the trains weren't running due to snow, from here I travelled to London to study - my official 'leaving home' and later to job interviews in Derby. My bike in the guard's van, and carrying it up the steps to street level to cut off a corner!

Although most of my adult life I've owned cars and driven, there have still been train journeys to and from Northampton to Warrington, to Manchester and, over the past few years, to Glasgow.

So it was that last Friday I boarded the 18:05 London Midland service to London Euston, calling at Milton Keynes to begin the homeward journey from what I feel is the time I left Northampton with absolutely no need to return.  The green and white train, with automatic doors and recorded messages - a far cry from the blue, British Rail commuter trains (one door between every pair of seats) I recalled from childhood. The collection thing from St Christopher's Railway orphange is long gone, even the station as I once knew it has been closed and (virtually) demolished to be replaced by a snazzy new glass-fronted thing with WH Smith and Starbucks (Coffee Republic has already failed and closed) rather than Pumpkin (the successor to Traveller's Fare)... Times move on and things change.  At least for now the paper tickets are still orange and cream, and the red double arrow sign still indicates a railway station.

But the adventures and significant moments are mine to treasure... and for me, at least, Northampton (Castle) Station (Mr Beeching having closed others long before my time) remains a significant landmark from which many adventures began and many memories were created.

The photo was taken from the train standing at Platform 1, looking towards Platform 2, and I find it somehow appropriate that a young man, engrossed in his phone is waiting to begin a journey of his own... I may never pass that way again, but the station will continue to carry new people on new adventures for a long time yet.