Geoff cuts in, mentioning the name of a national newspaper that 'made a comment that trainspotters are virtually morons… But we're completely harmless really.'
I look at them sitting there with their notebooks and cameras on a quiet Saturday afternoon. And yes, it's that word – that Charlie mentioned so long ago now in Kosovo – that gets it. Here we are on a slow train on the Kent–East Sussex border travelling ten miles one way and ten miles back because we just like the feel of the ride. There's no shopping, beyond a cup of tea and a scone from Debbie. There are no flashing screens with news updates on the latest disaster in the Middle East. There is no WiFi, no internet hook-up. There's just a slow train on a sunny day, heading west.
No hurry. No fuss.
Harmless.
Alan, Geoff and I chat for a bit about this and that. I've come across their sort now, from Beijing to Pristina, Western Australia to the foothills of the Himalayas; even a few in Iran. No hidden agendas. No axes to grind (well, not usually). Simply the pleasure taken in the ride: of seeing things through a window on a train.
We sit in silence as the Kent countryside morphs into the fields of East Sussex, and I recall a word that I heard for the first time the other day. 'Ferroequinology' comes from the Latin ferrum (iron) and equus (horse), and it refers to the science of iron horses. A ferroequinologist, it follows, is someone who studies trains. Well, the ferroequinologists and I on the Kent and East Sussex Railway are having a grand old time. Lunch can wait. For that matter, everything else can wait.
We're on an old steam train and the world is just fine.
At Bodiam, the train draws to a halt. From the carriages, there are glorious views across a field to the battlements and turrets of the fourteenth-century Bodiam Castle, once home to Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, no less, and now run by the National Trust.
I do not get out, but I do ask a question of Kevin, the train's 'casual catering assistant'. Kevin has been regaling me with tales about his grandfather, who was once a platelayer on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and has also been putting me straight about why trains are so wonderful: 'Life in the fast lane, Tom. Life is so fast in the fast lane, Tom. Get on a nice little train going along at twenty-five miles per hour. There's only a few people ambling about in the country: a few on the A-roads. Then you've got the wildlife: the kestrels, the owls, the sheep, cows and foxes.'
Kevin does me a favour. He has a word with the driver on my behalf – which is how I find myself in the cab of the locomotive on the return journey to Tenterden. I'm up by the furnace. And so to end my 49 unusual train journeys around the world, I can feel the heat of the orange embers, reflecting flickeringly on the shiny brass handles of the controls of the Holman F. Stephens. I am sharing the cab with Ian, the driver; George, the fireman; and Ben, a trainee driver.
It's too noisy to talk properly, though I learn they are all volunteers; that the coal comes from Russia and Poland; and that it's important to train up people like Ben or else there will be no drivers in the future and heritage lines such as the Kent and East Sussex Railway could die out. Most of the volunteers are of a certain age and can remember steam trains from their youth, whereas the new generation has not had that introduction. It's the same story told to me by Mike Lenz back at the Crewe Heritage Centre so many moons ago: no training, no trains.
The furnace pulsates with heat. The train traverses a level crossing. The chugging of the engine sounds wonderful up close: echoing, scraping, crackling, rasping, grunting. Steam hisses from the chimney. Ben shovels coal and sparks fly.
The Kent countryside slips by. I lean next to the gap by the loco door. Do I really understand the love of trains yet? Maybe, I'm thinking, maybe. We pass another level crossing, then a little winding stream. The whistle blows. A plume of steam shoots up. I ask myself the question again. Do I really understand?
Well, yes actually.
I think I do now.
AFTERWORD
SINCE my journeys for Ticket to Ride, much has already happened along the train lines that I travelled for this book. In the summer of 2015 in Macedonia and Kosovo, tens of thousands of refugees from Syria and Africa made their way along the tracks I visited, although they were going in the opposite direction. Footage of desperate figures crammed into carriages, some attempting to squeeze through windows, made tragic viewing. Since the peak of this rush, numbers of refugees have fallen, though this route into Europe is still being used.
A few weeks later, there was a crash on the Kalka–Shimla line in India, just ten minutes out of Kalka station, in which two Britons died and 13 were injured. They were part of a group of 37 Britons being led by the Indian train historian Raaja Bhasin, who told The Indian Express: 'I had just taken a seat minutes before the accident. It was God's grace that I was seated at that moment otherwise I wouldn't have been alive and talking to you.' The cause of the accident is unclear but the line is running once again.
In Iran, mass tourism by train has opened up in the wake of the decision made by Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office to relax its travel advisory and say that tourist visits to most parts of the country are 'safe'. How long this will last is unclear, but travelling about by train in Iran is now easier than ever. This said, torture of prisoners, unfair trials, discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities, as well as clampdowns on freedom of expression and the harassment of journalists – as chronicled by Amnesty International – continue. As I write, the Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian remains in prison, where the paper says that 'he has been subjected to further interrogations, psychological abuse, and physical mistreatment. He is deprived of normal human interactions, forced to wear a hood when he is escorted around prison by guards or interrogators, and is closely monitored at all times'.
In France, at around the same time as the horrific Islamic State attacks in which 130 people were murdered in Paris in November 2015, a high-speed train derailed on a test run between Paris and Strasbourg, killing 11 people. There had been 49 technicians on the train at the time of the crash, which was blamed on 'excessive speed'.
Further afield, since my long-ago train ride from Beijing to Pyongyang, North Korea has a new ruler. Kim Jong-un has taken over as supreme leader from his father Kim Jong Il. Presumably his portrait now adorns the carriages of the pristine Pyongyang underground too. Meanwhile in China, the 'rail enthusiast' who attempted to con me out of a few yuan and who complained about the country's one-child policy must be a little happier now that the authorities have relented and, in an historic change of policy that made front pages across the globe, allowed couples to have two children.
I conducted two train-related interviews that did not make it into the book that I would like to mention briefly here. The first was with Sir Harold Atcherley, author of a vivid memoir about being a Japanese prisoner of war and working on the Burma– Siam Railway, also known as the Death Railway. His courage and humour while living under frightful conditions are captured in his diary Prisoner of Japan, which I highly recommend. Of his group of 1,600 prisoners to go to Sonkurai camp on the presentday Myanmar–Thailand border, just 182 survived the war. Many railways have bloody stories, but perhaps none more so than the Death Railway. A transcript of this interview can be found on my website – www.tomchesshyre.co.uk – along with pictures taken during some of the rides described in Ticket to Ride.
The second interview was with Dr Amanda Bennett, an autism specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, with whom I discussed the connection between autism and an extreme interest in trains. She believes that there is 'no real evidence' of a link, although the desire among children to categorise objects, such as trains, suggests a pattern of behaviour in keeping with autism. Dr Bennett has written an interesting blog on the subject for Autism Speaks (www.autismspeaks.org), entitled What Is It About Autism and Trains? Equally interesting is the academic Ian Carter's book, British Railway Enthusiasm, in which Carter debunks Fleet Street's many attempts to overemphasise any rail-en
thusiasm– autism connection, which he describes as a 'social myth created by generations of lazy journalists'.
I did not tackle the subject of the eco credentials of trains versus planes and cars as it has been much written about elsewhere – plus I took quite a few planes during Ticket to Ride. Eurostar once estimated that each passenger on a train journey from London to Paris emits 6.6 kg of carbon dioxide, while each plane passenger on this route is responsible for
103 kg. This does not take into account the greater effect on the environment of gases from planes. Some scientists believe emissions pumped directly into the upper atmosphere are 2.7 times more damaging than those released at ground level. So it would seem, even if these figures are slightly out, that trains are 'greener' than planes.
Finally, in many of the countries I visited, train services will undoubtedly have altered since I was there. What I describe here are snapshots, as I have said. It's worth checking regularly updated websites, such as The Man in Seat 61 (www.seat61.com), to find out the latest.
Names of those encountered on trains were in many instances altered; most of the journeys were taken in 2014–15.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DOZENS OF PEOPLE helped to make this book possible, many of whom are mentioned in the text. Setting up so many journeys was logistically tricky, requiring plenty of sometimes haywire last-minute travel plans as well as commissions from newspapers to make journeys feasible. I'm especially grateful to: Jane Knight, travel editor of The Times; and Lesley Thomas, Weekend editor of The Times; as well as to Frank Barrett, travel editor of The Mail on Sunday; and Wendy Driver, deputy travel editor of The Mail on Sunday. I would also like to thank Kate Quill, Lysbeth Fox, Vicky Norman, Luisa Uruena, Jamie Fox, John Kiddle and Danny Kelly for their words of encouragement, as well as my sister Kate Chesshyre, my brother Edward Chesshyre and my aunt Meg Chesshyre for their good common-sense advice, and to my mother Christine Doyle and father Robert Chesshyre for listening to me ramble on about train journeys.
Claire Plimmer, editorial director at Summersdale, 'got' the idea of this slightly offbeat book immediately, for which I am extremely grateful. I also owe thanks to Madeleine Stevens, formerly of Summersdale, for her careful copy-editing under a tight deadline; Chris Turton, associate managing editor at Summersdale; Debbie Chapman, editor at Summersdale, for her expert overseeing of overall production; and Jennifer Barclay for her sharp and perceptive chapter-editing. Thanks also to Stephen McClarence for his advice, Dean Chant for publicity, Joanne Phillips for the index, to Marianne Thompson for the inspired cover and inside cover design, and to Hamish Braid for maps and typesetting.
For assistance with trips, thanks to: Alan Heywood of Ffestiniog Travel; Katie Cosstick of Cox & Kings; Amrit Singh and Hari Daggubaty of TransIndus; Nomi Kakoty of Oberoi Hotels; Amit Kaul, manager of the Oberoi Cecil Hotel in Shimla; Jemma Purvis of Kuoni Travel; Charlie Dyer of Angel Publicity and Uga Escapes; Carole Pugh of Four Corners PR and Regent Holidays; Frank Tigani of Starwood Hotels; Maria Hanninen in Helsinki; Paul Charles of Perowne Charles Communications and Visit Finland; Jovanka Ristich of iPR and Great Southern Rail; Peter and Valmai Selman, for their generous support and good cooking in Western Australia; Polly Beech and Sarah Barnett from Brand USA; Mark McCulloch of Hills Balfour and NYC & Company; Cheryl Offerman from Minneapolis.org; Amanda Monroe of www.Voyages-SNCF.com; Gwenaelle Towse-Vallet of Offi ce de Tourism de Bordeaux; Anna Nash (then of Orient Express); John Telfer of Explore; Michael Pullman (then of Cox & Kings); Sue Heady of Heady Communications; Sheila Manzano of Three Little Birds and Great Rail Journeys; Sir Harold Atcherley; Dr Amanda Bennett of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; and Richard Hammond of Green Traveller.
TRAINS TAKEN
1) Mortlake to Euston via Vauxhall – South West Trains to Vauxhall, 18 minutes, 9 miles; and the Tube to Euston – 10 minutes, 3 miles
2) Euston to Crewe – Virgin Trains, 1 hour 38 minutes, 169 miles
3) Crewe to Euston – Virgin Trains, 1 hour 38 minutes, 169 miles
4) Euston to Mortlake via Vauxhall – the Tube to Vauxhall, 10 minutes, 3 miles; and South West Trains to Mortlake – 18 minutes, 9 miles
5) Pristina to Peja – Trainkos, 2 hours 2 minutes, 52 miles
6) Peja to Pristina – Trainkos, 2 hours 2 minutes, 52 miles
7) Pristina to Skopje – Trainkos, 3 hours 42 minutes, 87 miles
8) Beijing to Xi'an – China Railway, 5 hours 46 minutes, 690 miles
9) Xi'an to Wuhan – China Railway, 3 hours 58 minutes, 508 miles
10) Wuhan to Nanjing – China Railway, 3 hours 50 minutes, 339 miles
11) Nanjing to Shanghai – China Railway, 1 hour 39 minutes, 193 miles
12) Pudong to Shanghai Pudong Airport – Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Company, 7 minutes, 19 miles
13) Shanghai Pudong Airport to Pudong – Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Company, 7 minutes, 19 miles
14) Shanghai to Beijing – China Railway, 5 hours 9 minutes, 819 miles
15) New Delhi to Kalka – Indian Railways, 4 hours 5 minutes, 190 miles
16) Kalka to Shimla – Indian Railways, 5 hours 10 minutes, 60 miles
17) Pathankot Cantt to New Delhi – Indian Railways, 7 hours 37 minutes, 298 miles
18) Colombo to Jaffna – Sri Lanka Railways, 6 hours 10 minutes, 250 miles
19) Sirkeci to Uskudar – Turkish State Railways 4 minutes, 8.5 miles
20) Istanbul to Tehran, via Boğazköprü, Golbasi, Van, Zanjan, Yazd, Isfahan and Shiraz – Turkish State Railways and Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, 102 hours, 2,700 miles
21) Helsinki to Moscow – VR Group, Russian Railways and China Railway, 10 hours 28 minutes, 693 miles
22) Komsomolskaya to Lubyanka – Moscow Metro, 4 minutes, 1.25 miles
23) Okhotny Ryad to Komsomolskaya – Moscow Metro, 5 minutes, 1.5 miles
24) Moscow to Beijing – Russian Railways, 150 hours, 5,623 miles
25) Perth to Sydney – Great Southern Rail, 65 hours, 2,720 miles
26) JFK Airport to Manhattan – AirTrain JFK and New York State Metro Transit, 40 minutes, 15 miles
27) Grand Central Terminal to Borough Hall – New York State Metro Transit, 17 minutes, 5 miles
28) Borough Hall to Grand Central Terminal – New York State Metro Transit, 17 minutes, 5 miles
29) New York to Chicago – Amtrak, 20 hours, 959 miles
30) St Paul to Seattle – Amtrak, 32 hours 25 minutes, 1,650 miles
31) St Pancras to Gare du Nord – Eurostar, 2 hours 15 minutes, 300 miles
32) Gare du Nord to Gare Montparnasse – Paris Métro, 18 minutes, 3.5 miles
33) Gare Montparnasse to Bordeaux – TGV, 3 hours 19 minutes, 360 miles
34) Bordeaux to Gare Montparnasse – TGV, 3 hours 19 minutes, 360 miles
35) Gare Montparnasse to Gare du Nord – Paris Métro, 18 minutes, 3.5 miles
36) Gare du Nord to St Pancras – Eurostar, 2 hours 15 minutes, 300 miles
37) Beijing to Pyongyang – State Railways, 26 hours, 560 miles
38) Renaissance to Glory – Pyongyang Metro, 10 minutes, 3 miles
39) Venice to Kraków – Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, 21 hours, 662 miles
40) Cusco to Machu Picchu – PeruRail and Orient Express, 4 hours, 41 miles
41) Gdańsk to Malbork – PKP Intercity, 34 minutes, 35 miles
42) Svetlogorsk II to Kaliningrad – Kaliningrad Railway, 1 hour, 28 miles
43) Klaipėda to Plungė – Lithuanian Railways, 51 minutes, 37 miles
44) Seville to Albacete, Tarragona, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Madrid – Renfe Operadora, 15 hours 40 minutes, 1,000 miles
45) Pontresina to Tirano – Rhaetian Railway, 1 hour 56 minutes, 27 miles
46) Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh – ScotRail, 2 hours 37 minutes, 70 miles
47) Mallaig to Glasgow – ScotRail, 5 hours 20 minutes, 150 miles
48) Tenterden to Bodiam – Kent and East Sussex Railway, 50 minutes,
10.5 miles
49) Bodiam to Tenterden – Kent and East Sussex Railway, 50 minutes, 10.5 miles
Number of countries: 22
Total distance: 22,304 miles
Total time: 21 days, 1 hour 28 minutes
Please note: distances and times are approximate
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allan, Ian ABC of Southern Railway Locomotives (1942, Ian Allan)
Allen, Geoffrey Freeman Railways of the Twentieth Century (1983, Winchmore)
Atcherley, Harold Prisoner of Japan: A Personal War Diary (2012, Memoirs)
Awdry, Christopher Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies (1990, Guild)
Battuta, Ibn and Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveller of the Fourteenth Century (2005, University of California Press)
Betjeman, John Collected Poems (2006, John Murray)
Bhasin, Raaja The Toy Train (2013, Minerva)
Boocock, Colin DMU Compendium (2011, Ian Allan)
Bradley, Simon The Railways: Nation, Network and People (2015, Profile)
Byron, Robert The Road to Oxiana (1937, Macmillan)
Carter, Ian British Railway Enthusiasm (2008, Manchester University Press)
Fitzgerald, F. Scott The Great Gatsby (1926)
Gimlette, John Elephant Complex (2015, Quercus)
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