What better way to travel the world than by train? Trains are not only more eco-friendly than cars or planes but also more adventurous and romantic. In a world dictated by speed, the quiet cadence of the railroad tracks provides the perfect antidote.
When the train rolled out of Thurso station at dawn, the northernmost in the UK, I couldn’t have imagined that four hours later I would be head over heels in love. No, not with a beautiful Scottish lass who positioned herself in a four-seater opposite me – although I did harbour such a fantasy since seeing the film Before Sunrise. The love that bloomed was one with train journeys. It was the spring of 2010, I was doing an internship at a men’s magazine, and the editor-in-chief had sent me to a surfing competition in the north of Scotland. By plane, of course. But while I was floundering in the icy water, a volcano a thousand kilometres away stirred. The Eyjafjallajökull grounded air traffic, I was stuck.
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I could have waited for the ash cloud to clear. But as an intern, I felt the urge to prove myself. So I looked for alternatives to get back to the office on time. An odyssey by train turned out to be the only option. I hadn’t made any real train journeys at that point, apart from a short trip around Central Europe during my monkey years – journeys that I experienced largely in the haze of a drinking coma or with a raging hungover.
Between Thurso and Inverness, I did keep my eyes open. What I saw was beautiful. The train rattled through untamed highlands. I rode past castles, lochs, and villages of three houses with tiny stations. Through rolling bogs and endlessly parallel to rocky coasts. And to think this Far North Line is not even considered Scotland’s prettiest train route. That honour goes to the journey between Glasgow and Mallaig.
A train journey, I realised, is more than just moving from A to B. It’s the ultimate choice of journey over destination, slow travel elevated to an art form. A puppy love grew into a relationship. On the train from Brussels to Jenbach, Austria, I watched the landscape slowly change, from the Ardennes hills to the vineyards of Franconia, until, just beyond Rosenheim, the Alps appeared on the horizon, sudden and majestic. By plan, this would have felt like cheating, as if all those in-betweens didn’t matter.
Russian short stories
Once, I met a wealthy woman who claimed to have seen the world. She invariably travelled in a rental car. With all due respect, I objected, but do you ever interact with the locals? Yes, she said adamantly, “I see them from behind the window.” However much we, travellers, like to claim to find the addresses, the bars and restaurants, “where only the locals go”, real contacts are often limited to a fleeting exchange of words with a taxi driver, a receptionist or a waiter. On a train, by contrast, “anything is possible”, mused Paul Theroux, author and voracious train traveller. “A great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed like Russian short stories.”
Time and again, those words ring true. There’s no place as delightful for people-watching as a train carriage. In an antique compartment in Bulgaria, travelling from Sofia to Gorna Oryahovitsa, I found myself in an Emir Kusturica film. A hunched old woman next to me pulled out an Orthodox religious icon from a shopping trolley while yelling into a brick-like dumb phone. A little further on, we rolled through the Iskar Gorge, where water had carved a path through sandstone and limestone over hundreds of thousands of years. Next to the tracks rose a monumental cliff face, and I was in the front row to behold it.
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The further away from the ‘efficient’ railways of Western Europe – everything is relative, hence the inverted commas – the greater the adventure. I experienced my most thrilling train journey in Myanmar. In the mountains between Pyin Oo Lwin and Hsipaw, the train creaked and groaned its way over the Gokteik Viaduct, a railway bridge towering a hundred metres above a gorge, “a monster of silver geometry in all the ragged rock and jungle”, as described by Theroux in The Great Railway Bazaar.
Don’t expect Western standards. I sat on wooden benches and broken chairs with indistinct stains, among betel-nut-chewing men with moustaches, snoring Buddhist monks, burlap sacks of rice and cardboard boxes with chickens. Vendors sold deep-fried snacks. Burmese trains are hand-me-downs from China running on British colonial railways – the gauge differs. That’s why they rocked like a pirate ship in an amusement park. And they crawled along at a snail’s pace of about 20 kilometres per hour. It took me two days to cover the 300 kilometres between Mandalay and Inle Lake. Ten kilometres before the terminus, the train broke down and I waited four hours for a replacement locomotive. It puts things into perspective when the train to Brussels is once again ten minutes late. At least for a while.
Long live the sleeper train
As a Belgian, I count my blessings. London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cologne are just a few hours away by train. Other cities are also within reach. Take the early train from Brussels, and you’ll be in Berlin at one o’clock, Barcelona at half past four, and Prague by 5:15 pm. That’s in the heart of those cities, mind you, not in a warehouse thirty kilometres away – as is the case with air travel. And yes, a train journey routinely costs more than a flight. Airlines don’t pay taxes on kerosene, a thinly veiled subsidy that Europe does not seem able to get rid of. Early birds with flexibility, however, can also score bargains on the rails. Try finding a flight to Berlin for 20 euros, luggage included.
Unless you walk or cycle, travelling by train is by far the most environmentally friendly option. The range of routes in Europe has been increasing in recent years – so, too, have the options for those looking to go green, perhaps the most pleasant side effect of the climate crisis. The overnight trains to Berlin and Vienna are by now well known. But did you know that overnight trains to Italy and Croatia depart from Stuttgart – reachable in four hours from Brussels?
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Many overnight train routes could easily make it onto any traveller’s bucket list. From Helsinki to Rovaniemi, on the Arctic Circle. From London to Fort William, at the foot of Ben Nevis. From Milan to Palermo, where the train cars board the ferry to Sicily! Each time, you wake up in a landscape completely different from where you fell asleep. We travelled from Gorna Oryahovitsa to Burgas. For an extra five lev – 2,5 euros – the conductress gave us a set of freshly washed sheets and showed us our spot in a couchette – possibly the cheapest dorm bed in Europe. We went to sleep in the mountains and woke up by the Black Sea. It’s a romance you rarely find in the air.
Slow? Yes, please!
In the same category falls the dining car. Unfortunately, many companies have downgraded it to a takeaway counter where you can buy weak coffee and fast food hastily reheated in microwaves. The starched linen and gilded cutlery are long gone. Kudos, therefore, to the Polish railways, which as far as I’m concerned, make the bravest attempt to go against the trend. While birch forests whiz by between Warsaw and Krakow, Poznan or Gdansk, you still get coffee in a real cup, not in cardboard; beer in a glass, not in plastic; and a bowl of żurek or a kotlet schabowy with potatoes, the kind of grandmother’s kitchen that you usually find in Polish milk bars, on real crockery.
Are trains not unreliable and uncomfortable? Sometimes, certainly. Of course, I curse at a missed connection or an overcrowded carriage. Just as I occasionally mumble insults at surly airport staff when they treat me like a criminal because my luggage weighs a hundred grams too much or because I forgot to remove that bottle of water from my backpack in time. And yes, sometimes I cheat on trains with airplanes. But, to quote Paul Theroux once again, “I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”
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A journey by rail typically takes longer than by air. But: it’s a feature, not a bug. During a never-ending train journey, only the starting and ending points are fixed. In between, time stands still – a perfect excuse to do nothing, except read that book that has been waiting for your eyes for weeks. Hence, the increased amenities on trains – the power outlets and the Wi-Fi – somewhat diminish the charm. Such a journey becomes more efficient, but at the same time, we lose a last refuge. Because, let’s admit it: sipping coffee, eavesdropping on conversations, playing cards, or simply staring out the window are activities that embody a slowness we hardly allow in our ever-hurried lives. No obligations for a while, how rarely does that happen?
Train travel for beginners: practical information
>> The first stop for those wanting to travel by train in Europe: D-Bahn. The German railways’ route planner in particular demonstrates Gründlichkeit, also for journeys beyond national borders. If you want to travel, say, from Seville to Stockholm by train, this website will tell you how.*
>> The Railplanner app gathers timetables from most European lines, also available for offline consultation.
>> The online bible for train travel in Europe and beyond: The Man in Seat 61, packed with tips to help you find the best fares and never miss a connection. Here you will discover how to get to Istanbul by train from Brussels or how to travel to Italy for 64 euros.
>> There’s no official ticketing system for all train companies in Europe, a pain point indeed. The Trainline comes closest. It sells tickets for (cross-border) routes in the Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland via its website and app. If you want to travel outside these regions, book your tickets on the websites of the various national train companies – you can find the links at Seat 61. Another tip from Seat 61: when booking longer train journeys with one or more connections, break them down into individual segments. Sometimes you’ll pay only a fraction of the price this way.
*Via Madrid, Avignon, Karlsruhe, and Hamburg.
This story first appeared in Dutch in De Morgen Magazine.