TRAINS are little capsules packed with random members of the telephone directory. They should be avoided to prevent the premature onset of madness. I got on a choochoo the other day. I was compelled by the forces of capitalism to take part in a religious show, for which I was paid rather well for 15 minutes of vile, bilious, and obnoxious argument. And that was just from the Christian audience; a salivation of wild carnivores, advocating my salvation. And I was thrown to them, much the same as they themselves, used to be thrown to the lions. Those were the days.

My train seat was booked, a standard courtesy of the TV company, who thought to buy me a standard ticket too. All for which I was expected to turn in a first-class performance. I don't mind slumming it with a carriage of confused souls; I had a book of meditations for women who do too much, (I thought it would be interesting to read how the other half lives), and, of course, a ScotRail sandwich to reject as disgusting. I would be occupied. Like a toilet.

As usual there were only two carriages supplied to take a battery of gesticulating, claustrophobic people from Queen Street, Glasgow to Aberdeen. Passengers spy empty places with eagle-eyed precision, and approach them with whirling-dervish alacrity. After much bruising, grimacing, shoving, and side-stepping into makeshift lay-bys, I spotted a heavyweight presence in my pre-booked seat.

I was about to say, ''Excuse me, I'm afraid you'll have to move. The number of this seat correlates quite spookily with that on my ticket,'' when I noticed that he was blind. Painfully and unmistakably so, with rolling eyes and a tablet of stone in Braille on his lap. I don't know if he was reading Shakespeare or Jackie Collins, but like a mugger, my conscience tightened its grip around my gullet.

It's very hard to be nasty to blind people. You need a heart of coal. What was I supposed to do? Explain gently but firmly to him that if he'd bothered to grope the headrest, that there would have been sufficient physical evidence to confirm that the seat was, in fact, taken? The move would have nuked my sleep for

at least a day. I was jostled and cajoled into various acrobatic positions to allow the hurried and worried to pass. I watched his hands maniacally stroke sheaves of sallow, embossed pages.

I looked out at the scenery; bare, black trees against a fading, oyster light. A mercury sea, and an unfurling flag of migrating birds. I thought Scotland was beautiful and silvery; ancient and dignified. Every winter, like old age itself, a slow decline into darkness. So, it wasn't strictly social pressure that stopped me chucking him out. I mean, I have no shame. I have borrowed copies of the Big Issue.

His rabid reading betrayed a hunger for a stimulation an easy glance out of the window could bring to me. There is no more sad humiliation than not being able to know the word beauty.

I resigned myself to a spare corner beside the luggage. The electric doors had a nervous twitch and released Siberian temperatures, and the cold weather made everyone want to go to the loo. Compassion fatigue set in around Stirling, when I was accosted by a fat, ruddy-faced Lancastrian who happened to be an authority on Scottish towns.

''Of course Livingston is growing at some rate,'' he chatted. ''Really?'' I withered. ''Yes,'' responded the Lancastrian. Used to being ignored all his life he was inordinately pleased with my weak crumb of a response. ''Every time you go to Livingston there's a new roundabout. I have a friend at work.'' I have to admit, the news shocked me. ''He used to live in Livingston and if you have a car, it's 15 minutes from Glasgow. There are lots of cars in Livingston. Mostly new cars.''

I could see the blind man stretching his arms, closing his book, and settling in for a doze and a coffee. ''Of course,'' my gatecrasher continued. ''You can set off for the station at ten past ten, and I can be in Lancaster at five past two. That's where I'm from.''

Public transport is evil and boring. Being boring is a crime against humanity, and should be exorcised at an international criminal tribunal, namely the Hague, where people would have to defend their determination to hypnotise polite folk into a bemused trance. I could feel my life force seeping into a sticky, bloody puddle on the floor, into which the Lancastrian was tramping disrespectfully. Kill me now, please, I secretly begged. I would have given him the gun to put me out my

misery. ''Not a bad place to be,

Lancaster,'' he insisted, ''but I prefer Newcastle.'' Meanwhile the blind man stretched again, and contentedly yawned.

Stevie Wonder alighted at Dundee. I grabbed my seat, before I saw any shaky pensioners on their last legs, whom I should also give moral right of way. Later, on the show, a pit of superior Christians said that they felt sorry for me, because I had not found Jesus, and, that without the white light of religion I was living in darkness. I had the opposite view. But I wasn't giving up my seat for any of them.