Have you ever had the feeling you were in The Prisoner?

If you are old enough to have watched this curious 1960s TV series, you will remember that, every week, Patrick McGoohan tried to escape from a weird place called The Village, only to find that its boundaries were patrolled by a surprisingly effective army of wobbly balloons.

I had much the same experience last week, when I thought I had escaped from Swindon to Yorkshire, only to find I was also imprisoned – not by balloons, but giant machines.

We were on a short break up north, and driving towards the village of Goathland, where another TV series, Heartbeat, was filmed.

But as we approached it we noticed lots of men on the side of the road, with cameras poised.

The closer we got, the more there were, including dozens perched on a bridge, and when we arrived at the railway station, it was teeming with yet more of them, even though it was by now – as they say in Yorkshire – right belting down with rain.

It couldn’t have been our arrival that was causing all the excitement – they didn’t know we were coming – but it turned out that the fuss was, ironically, about the visit of another couple of VIPs from Swindon.

We had stumbled on a major annual steam festival on the North Yorks Moors Railway, which had even bigger crowds than usual, this year, because of the imminent arrival of two Swindon-built GWR locos, King Edward II and Witherslack Hall.

It was then that I realised I am destined never to escape from Swindon history.

I am no trainspotter and no expert, but because I was also built in Swindon, so to speak, I have learnt a bit about railways, over the years.

So I was able to boast about my connection and chat about all things Swindon, even though, as you might imagine, I was out of my depth amongst some of the biggest railway geeks ever assembled in one place.

These are men who can tell the class of engine approaching, just by the sound.

The experience confirmed two things.

For years I have been saying that our railway heritage means Swindon steam is held in much higher esteem than we give it credit for, and because anybody with red blood in their veins loves a steam train, there is much more we could do with that heritage to promote our town.

Sadly, it also confirmed that whoever says you are as old as you feel has got it seriously wrong.

You are as old as you look.

I might feel like I am in my forties or even thirties, and it may be a constant struggle to come to terms with how the last two or three decades passed by in what seems like the blink of an eye, but it still comes as a terrible shock, every time I look in the mirror or see my picture and there is an old man staring back at me.

Or, to put it another way: I’m 58. How did that happen?

So imagine the even greater shock of watching the trains depart, then looking down the platform and seeing it is a sea of middle-aged men with grey hair (those who had any), and realising you have merged seamlessly with them.

Until then I was thinking I was the odd one out, but let's face it: my train has well and truly arrived at Railway Geek Demographic Station.

And if I check my pockets, the only ticket I have is a platform ticket.