At the top, glistening – almost sparkling – in the station's neonstrip lighting, are two sets of traditional Spanish steak knives bought as Christmas presents in Albacete. Next to these are three packages in bubble wrap.
The security man picks up one of the boxes of knives, which look like a set of daggers a blindfolded magician might hurl at an assistant pinned to a board. He feels their substantial weight. I've gone for the quality ones, with nice solid handles. Then he points at the packages in bubble wrap, though I can sense he seems satisfied that there has already been a massive breach of weapons regulations.
'¿Qué es esto?' he asks. Then he says, his voice rising in pitch, 'What? What eees deees?'
I open the packages to reveal three large, super-sharp Albacete carving knives. I'd really gone to town with the Christmas presents back in the traditional knife-making capital of Spain.
The security guard hardly knows where to look: I am in possession of a small cache of blades. It's not as though I've forgotten about a penknife attached to a key ring. If this were a drink-driving test, I'd be escorted to the nearest cell to sleep it off for 24 hours. The guard makes as though he is about to confiscate the lot.
'They are gifts for my parents!' I plead. 'Gifts! Christmas gifts! Presents for loved ones!'
I'm not sure he understands a word of my blabbering. I also realise I'm doing a pretty good impression of Basil Fawlty.
He does, however, waver. He seems to have deduced that, although I may be a lunatic, I'm not on a mission to launch a mad steak-knife attack. My guidebooks and general tourist clobber do not fit the usual suspicious suspect's profile. Likewise my begging about Christmas presents and mention of my father's birthday – laying it on a bit thick there, I admit – probably do not conform to the usual responses of an al-Qaeda operative when put under pressure.
He picks up the offending items. The look in his eyes says: The rules, the rules: I cannot let these through. Then he glances about (no colleagues are watching), drops the knives in the bag and hooks a thumb towards the train. Without looking back, he returns to his X-ray monitor.
I zip up the bag and go – like my traditional Spanish knives – sharpish.
The best train in Europe
Pontresina, Switzerland, to Tirano, Italy, on the Bernina Express (2011)
Alpine winter-sports holidays do not have to involve throwing yourself down a mountainside, hoping your insurance covers whatever potentially life-threatening injuries you pick up during a week in which you have repeatedly shelled out 30 euros a day for spaghetti bolognaise lunches that appear to have been cooked by a 13-year-old on work experience, served at tables jammed with continental types disdainful of both your poor on-slope acumen and your rubbish mountain dress sense.
No, they can be better than that. You do, however, need to readjust your definition of 'sport' to include 'taking a train'. If you are happy to do this, it's a cinch.
And so I find myself on what I consider the best train in Europe. The Bernina Express runs for 90 miles between Switzerland and Italy, passing through 55 tunnels and crossing 155 bridges. At one point the railway, completed in 1904, reaches 2,253 metres (7,391 feet), making this the highest railway 'crossing' in Europe: the tracks traverse the mountaintops of Switzerland and pass into Italy. There is a higher train in Europe, also in Switzerland – the Jungfrau Railway, which touches 3,454 metres – but most of this is in a tunnel, so it's quite boring really.
The Bernina Express is not at all boring. I board at Pontresina, close to the posh Swiss ski resort of St Moritz, to take a 27-mile stretch across the high point and into Italy. A few Swiss skiers are in my carriage. They are lugging their foolish mountain equipment, while I am travelling pleasantly light, without cumbersome ski boots or any other nonsense. It is good to watch them struggle with their poles, and an added delight to realise they have got on the train in the incorrect direction for St Moritz. They disembark at the next stop to wait for a return service. For a while, I watch them with disdain for their poor train acumen and rubbish train knowledge. Ah, the small pleasures in life.
The Bernina Express, I should say here, is a tomato-red train that travels on a metre-wide track. The track is a recognised UNESCO World Heritage Site, and this, I believe, means that it is protected for ever – which is a wonderful thing. After the skiers have realised the error of their ways, we continue peacefully into the Swiss mountains. The windows are shaped to offer panoramic views of the peaks, curving upwards around the edge of the train's roof and thoughtfully tinted to keep out the high-altitude glare. The ridges above are clear on this sunny day, offering a diamond sparkle above slopes thick with pines.
A coffee trolley comes with a jolly toy antelope-type creature attached to the front. The male attendant wears a blue apron with a flowery pattern on its collar as well as an expensive TAG Swiss watch (everyone in Switzerland seems to be rich, even the train-trolley staff). He informs me, rather un-cheerfully given his garb, that the creature is an ibex, not an antelope. Stupid of me to have made such a mistake. However, I buy a coffee and take his grumpiness merely to be a local Swiss quirk that's all part of the mountain experience.
Cross-country skiers follow us for a while on paths alongside the track. I watch their hypnotic movement as we rise gently. Little black squirrels scurry in the snow and hawks soar above the pines. We pause at a station named Morteratsch. This is at the foot of a long ski run considered famous in these parts, though what a lot of exertion when you could be drinking coffee on a train with panoramic windows and trolleys with toy ibex. Further stations appear with names such as Diavolezza and Lagalb. The latter is at 2,099 metres; Pontresina was at 1,774 metres. We have gone a fair way up.
The landscape now is white, white, white. Beside the road beyond Lagalb, giant nets hold back great heaps of powder. We pass a valley in which people are being dragged on skis attached to sails close to a frozen lake. This pursuit is known as 'kite skiing', I am later informed. Further on, we reach the highest point of our ride at the station of Ospizio. Then we dip into a tunnel that opens onto a skyscape of wispy clouds. From cliffs alongside the track, icicles dangle in frozen torrents, glinting in shades of blue.
Ears pop as we drop amid pines, and a river snakes below. At a place named Poschiavo, there's a hillside graveyard behind tall grey walls, as well as a Co-op supermarket. Then we come to the Brusio spiral viaduct, completed in 1908, coiling round on itself, the track rolling in a C-shape beneath one of the tall brick archways. The gradient here is one in seven.
Vineyards with skeletal vines, a higgledy-piggledy farm and enormous stacks of logs lead to Tirano at 429 metres, where a sign at the lemon-yellow station says: ITALIA. It has been a twohour journey. I look around the sleepy town, eat a tasty little foureuro pizza at Buffet della Stazione, then catch the Bernina Express back to Pontresina.
What great 'sport' – and no broken bones.
'This is Tom. He likes trains'
Gdańsk to Malbork, Poland; Svetlogorsk to Kaliningrad, Russia; Klaipėda to Plungė, Lithuania (2015)
I'm on a journey from Gdańsk in the north of Poland to see the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and then travel onwards to Vilnius in Lithuania, from where I am flying home. No train trips are planned, I'll just stress that here: none at all.
We are to drive to Kaliningrad, where I intend to nose about for a bit in Russia's peculiar Baltic Sea port, 200 miles from Russia's mainland, bordered by Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north. From Kaliningrad we are to drive to Lithuania's capital. A Lithuanian ground agent is sorting out the logistics of the whole trip.
I am travelling with John, a tour operator contact, who is conducting a recce of Kaliningrad. I am tagging along. On the flight over to Gdańsk I tell John about my recent train journeys and a light flickers across his face, though he merely nods and soon afterwards nonchalantly changes the subject.
The next day, however, John's manner has changed. As soon as we meet Herkus, our Lithuanian 'fixer', he quickly informs him, 'This i
s Tom. He likes trains!' On my behalf, the itinerary is immediately scrambled. And so we find ourselves, just a couple of hours later, at Gdańsk's Gothic red-brick station – all turrets, spires and zigzag roofs – about to catch a train to Malbork.
'Why Malbork?' I ask.
'It's got a castle! Something like that,' says John, sounding distracted as we locate our platform near three Polish trainspotters, and await one of Poland's new high-speed trains.
A shiny, silver-blue, bullet-nosed locomotive soon arrives. John's eyes open wide. He is temporarily lost for words. 'Excellent! Excellent! Train!' he eventually mumbles, oblivious to all else around him. We board.
Our train hurtles past a series of damp red-brick buildings and an abandoned quarry. 'Wonderful! Wonderful!' John says, his eyes misting over. He is dressed in a fleece and chinos. His hair is ruffled as though he's been scratching his head attempting to resolve a particularly tricky problem. Now, though, he seems at one with the world. We zip through a windswept, empty station at a place called Tczew. 'Oh, just wonderful!'
John consults the train's menu. Our carriage is smart and new with olive-green seats; the service began just a few months earlier. 'Look at this! Hot toddy! Just what you need after a day's skiing or for a cold,' he says, marvelling at the breadth of drinks on offer. We skirt a river next to a boggy marsh and arrive at Malbork station, another fine Gothic red-brick affair in a section of town with factories that's a long walk from the castle. 'And here's an industrial complex!' exclaims John. 'I'm so happy! So happy, I'm going to smoke a cigarette!' He hardly ever smokes. 'How wonderful to take in a place by train you only heard of last week in the middle of Eastern Europe.'
This is our first train experience based on 'This is Tom. He likes trains.'
The second is in Kaliningrad, the frankly weird enclave that was home to the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant when it was known as Königsberg and was part of Germany. It was flattened during the Second World War, after which Stalin cannily negotiated for the land as part of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement.
'There is another train, Tom. Another train for you,' says John, at first sounding careful about introducing the topic. We are being taken round Kaliningrad's sights, which are not that many due to the war. On arrival the previous night, we had drunk fizzy lager and horseradish vodka at a thrash-metal music venue (the people of Kaliningrad have a thing for thrash-metal), and been shouted at in the street by lads in a car as we returned to the hotel. Their exact words were: 'Foreigners! Kill them!' Luckily, they did not attempt to carry out their threat. This night out has meant that we have been visiting the amber mines and Nazi bunkers of Kaliningrad with sore heads. However, when he mentions that he has 'another train' planned, John's whole demeanour lifts. His eyes take on an evangelical glint. 'Yes! Yes!' he says suddenly. 'Another train!'
John whispers to Olga, our local guide. We proceed to the seaside resort of Svetlogorsk. It is February and freezing. Hardly anyone is about. We take a look around, as though justifying going to Svetlogorsk in the first place, and then head straight for Svetlogorsk station, quite a collector's item for even the most diehard rail enthusiast. Olga is somewhat surprised that we have asked to come here.
A train with orange and green stripes awaits at the station. 'Train!' says John, rather obviously, but accurately. We board and Olga, who likes to take a philosophical perspective, looks around and comments, 'Yes, I suppose trains do create a different atmosphere. Like being in a cradle: the body behaves in a different way. I do like them.' We move off. John gazes out of the window, ogling the Soviet-era tower blocks. Not a lot else happens. We rattle along for an hour. John seems quietly content.
Part three of our train odyssey takes place in Lithuania.
Our Lithuanian fixer has flatly denied that trains are a possibility in his home country. 'When I said I'd like to take a short hop, Herkus told me there are no domestic trains, just international trains,' John confides in me. By now we are in the Lithuanian port of Klaipėda. John shakes his head, as though sad that a local fixer could be so out of touch with the Lithuanian train situation. Herkus has had to drive to pick us up from each of these train trips, so my guess is that he was being cunningly, and understandably, economical with the truth. Herkus drops us at Klaipėda station, where we buy coffees. These are served in cups bearing the slogan: COFFEE IS COMING BACK.
You heard this first in Klaipėda.
Rain buckets down outside the main train station of Lithuania's main port. A small red and grey train pulls in. We scamper into a carriage. Then we move slowly away past walls with graffiti, men in orange jackets tending a digger, a series of derelict buildings and a field partially covered in slush. It appears to have been snowing. Beyond a heap of railway sleepers we come to the station of Plungė, where we disembark.
John smokes a cigarette as the train judders off Lord knows where. 'Ah, yes, yes!' he says, pacing towards the little station building, where a sign says that thousands of Lithuanians were sent to Siberia from Plungė between 1941–1952, during Stalin's Purges.
Herkus arrives after a while, appearing a touch road-weary, and John in some detail describes the journey by train from Klaipėda to Plungė.
'You counted the stations?' asks Herkus, raising an eyebrow.
'Yes, yes!' says John, lighting another cigarette. 'Excellent. A good one. I can tell Tom really liked it. Excellent. Really excellent.'
Herkus looks at us both, glances at the station, says nothing and drives us to the airport to fly home.
Tell a rail enthusiast you are interested in trains when you happen to be abroad together on a trip, and be prepared for… all that comes next.
12
INVERNESS TO KYLE OF LOCHALSH AND MALLAIG TO GLASGOW, SCOTLAND; KENT AND EAST SUSSEX, ENGLAND: FOR THE LOVE OF TRAINS
TRAINS TAKE YOU to many weird and wonderful places. I have now reached the 45-journey mark of these tales. I have covered 21 far-flung countries and many thousands of miles, but my final four rides are to be on home soil. If you don't count my adventure up in Crewe and my speedy journeys between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel, I have been saving the 'home of trains' till last.
In this book, I have touched upon the importance of trains to Britain's industrial success during the crucial Victorian era. The British invented them and, for many years from Robert Stephenson's Rocket onwards, Britain was the world leader. Across the globe, the expertise of British engineers was called upon to construct many of the lines upon which I have travelled, from those in America's Midwest to India's tracks into the Himalayas, Australia's great Nullarbor run, and the first railways of China.
But Ticket to Ride is not, as you will have gathered by now, intended to be a history of trains and railways. Instead, it's a celebration of them, with references to the past when the early days seem especially important to the ride. There is simply too much 'train history' out there for me to cover comprehensively while describing the eclectic mix of journeys I have somehow accumulated. Besides, other authors have tackled the subject fully and admirably; I'm a particular fan of Britain's leading train buff and crystal-clear writer Christian Wolmar. His Blood, Iron & Gold, on how railways transformed the world, is an absorbing, wide-ranging read.
This has been a journey into the love of trains; an attempt to understand why so many people still have a soft spot for them – from the average Joe looking out at the world from a carriage to the most committed hardcore gricer.
Now I'm about to depart on some of the loveliest trips of all. After hurtling to the far-flung corners of the globe, I've come full circle. I'm home. It's time to sit back, relax, reflect… and enjoy the final rides.
By lochs, burns and glens
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh, and Mallaig to Glasgow, Scotland
At Inverness station, an engine rumbles as I wait for the train to the Kyle of Lochalsh. I've just been to the WHSmith where Sheila, the sales assistant, has told me: 'Everybody gets so excited. You can't help but get excited with them.
'
Sheila is referring to the rail enthusiasts who come to this station to take the journey on which I am about to embark, a 70-mile trip across some of the most beautiful countryside in Britain. The Kyle Line, as it is known, opened in 1897 at great cost. An estimated £20,000 per mile was spent to cut through rock and to build bridges (29 altogether) to link Inverness on the east coast with the Kyle of Lochalsh on the west. It was an important connection as cattle could be loaded to be sent to market, reaching London from the west of Scotland in 21 hours. Previously it had taken six weeks to lead beasts by hoof along drove roads to reach trains going south.
The railway was almost closed during Dr Beeching's cuts in the 1960s, but the line survived this – and another scare in the 1970s – thanks partly to enthusiasts from Friends of the Kyle Line, who lobbied with passion and no small degree of cunning to save the track. I use the word 'cunning' as there was, at the time, a chance of oil discovery in deep waters off the west coast. Were this to happen, the railway would be extremely useful for transporting materials needed on oil-rig platforms. Campaigners played this up. Politicians, partly swayed by the prospect of riches, granted a reprieve.
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