The guard at Butterley station was awaiting the shuttle that would ferry fans to Swanwick station for Indietracks, a music festival combining indiepop and steam trains that took place last weekend in Derbyshire. But he was merrily oblivious to the occasion. "I don't know anything about indie music," he said. "Whatever that is."
Both stations are part of The Midland Railway Centre, in Ripley, Derbyshire, which is staffed by volunteers, with the proceeds from the festival going towards the upkeep of the site and trains. Indietracks isn't the only event associated with the centre - there's a Doctor Who Convention in September.
"Are the Daleks coming?" asked the guard. "I guess they'd need the disabled ramp."
British music festivals have undergone a pop explosion in the past decade. As recently as 1998, Phoenix, then one of the largest, was cancelled due to a general lack of interest – compare this to the legion of multi-faceted beasts that now operate every weekend from June to September, from the ritual of Glastonbury to the chaos of Bestival.
But it's hard to imagine that any are quite as eccentric as Indietracks. It appeared out of nowhere in 2007 – flyers started appearing at gigs in the Midlands and on indie message boards, advertising a night of bands and steam trains. It sounded ridiculous and wonderful. We had to go.
It turns out to be the brain child of Stuart Mackay, a shy Scottish man restoring trains in the middle of Derbyshire. He didn't expect it to work. "Don't ask me why," he said. "I think there's a lot of roots of indie pop in the Sixties, with Sixties dresses and music – and with old fashioned steam trains, that might be the tie-in."
The main site for the festival is located at Swanwick Junction, which features such attractions as a demonstration signal box, a narrow gauge railway and a half-built diesel depot. Indie kids wandered around in glee, or sat in 1950s buffet cars, drinking beer and discussing the line-up: this year, Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, The Frank and Walters, BMX Bandits. Bands played in a restored church, in a train shed, or on the lawn while steam trains glided on by. Most magically of all, some of them got to play on the trains themselves – while the train was moving.
This involved as many people stuffing themselves into a goods carriage as possible. The train chugged off through the Derbyshire countryside, stopping at a reservoir and then near a cemetery to allow enough time for a few songs. Everyone sang along. It was like a parallel universe commute from the planet Sunshine.
Indiepop, a DIY scene that has its roots in 1980s indie (think girls with fringes, handclaps and jangly songs about love, and you're about there), attracts people from all over the world - just not many of them. There were DJs from Spain and Hong Kong, bands from Sweden, New York and even Argentina; but still only 1,000 people in total turned up. And how many of them like steam trains?
Midlands folkpop-poet MJ Hibbett summed up the connection best. "Indiepop and steam engines are both loved by enthusiasts, who do it for the fun of it rather than any monetary gain.
"Also, there's always real ale involved."
This DIY spirit was particularly strong in the Workshop Wigwam where, over the course of the weekend, there were activities including how to write a song, a bunting-making party, how to put together a fanzine, and How Not To Run a Record Label. The host of the latter, Sean Price of Fortuna Pop! label, claimed: "By my conservative estimates, I've lost a six-figure sum over 13 years."
Eithne Farry, author of Yeah I Made It Myself and former member of 80s indie legends Tallulah Gosh, runs a session called "Hey Ho Let's Sew". "Don't fear the sewing machine, it's your friend," she told me. "Before you know it, you could be making your own ball gown with a huge train." This kind of DIY attitude is at the heart of the festival's ideology: if you make something earnestly, you too can be an indiepop star.
You've probably already been thinking it, but Art Brut, art-punks incongruously playing on the Sunday night, mentioned the dreaded "t" word.
"I'm really liking the festival, but I've just one complaint – it's a bit twee."
It is. Singer Eddie Argos claimed he's going to form his own festival, where all the bands are punk, and it's going to take place in a tank museum, "in November."
I daydreamed a retro-futurist synth-pop festival, which would take place on a monorail. But how would the monorail staff feel? As for the volunteers at the Midland Railway Centre, they seemed pleased with the crowd that Indietracks draws.
"I'll say this for them: they're all very well behaved, unlike those metallers."
Or Daleks.