The 16 stations would be located at Grimsby, Gainsborough, Louth, High Peak, Worksop, Skegness, Newark, Eastwood, Ashbourne, Sleaford, AshbydelaZouch, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, Market Deeping, Market Harborough and Hinckley.
On the high street in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a tidy market town, Bagehot momentarily thought he had found the archetypal swing voter: a youngish mother who lives on the edge of town and whose husband works for Rolls-Royce just the sort of characteristics that political strategists get excited about.