Ticket to Ride Read online

  PRAISE FOR TICKET TO RIDE

  'Trains, dry wit, more trains, evocative descriptions, more trains, fascinating people and more trains – what is there not to like?'

  Christian Wolmar

  'Funny and illuminating from Crewe to Korea, Ticket to Ride is a hugely entertaining account of the author's travels on the rails the world over – chance encounters fly like sparks'

  Sara Wheeler

  'Like mini-odysseys, Chesshyre's railway journeys are by turns gentle and awesome, and full of surprises'

  John Gimlette

  'Tom's ticket certainly scores all the best rides: fast rides and slow ones, short trips and long ones. But most important are the names: why would any trainspotter (let alone a gricer) pass up the Reunification Express or, even better the Orient Express, for a mere airplane?'

  Tony Wheeler

  PRAISE FOR TALES FROM THE FAST TRAINS

  'Compulsory reading'

  Mark Smith, THE MAN IN SEAT 61

  'Great fun, and an exhilarating read'

  Sara Wheeler

  'If you've "done" Paris and Bruges and are wondering, "Where next?", then this may be a quiet revelation'

  Andrew Marr

  'Splendid twenty-first-century railway adventure. At last this IS the age of the train'

  Simon Calder, THE INDEPENDENT

  'Chesshyre… is an interesting, knowledgeable, discerning tour guide and a most genial companion'

  Alexander Frater, author of Tales from the Torrid Zone

  'Transforms seemingly unsurprising familiar territory – whether the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras or the cities of Frankfurt and Antwerp – into the stage for insights and adventures'

  Dea Birkett, author of Serpent in Paradise

  PRAISE FOR TO HULL AND BACK

  'Tom Chesshyre celebrates the UK… discovering pleasure in the unregarded wonders of the "unfashionable underbelly" of Britain. The moral, of course, is that heaven is where you find it'

  THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

  'You warm to Chesshyre, whose cultural references intelligently inform his postcards from locations less travelled'

  THE TIMES

  PRAISE FOR HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

  'Highly readable Bill Bryson-esque travel writing'

  Clover Stroud, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

  'A hilarious record of a low-cost odyssey around the least salubrious corners of Europe'

  Celia Brayfield, THE TIMES

  PRAISE FOR A TOURIST IN THE ARAB SPRING

  'This witty, perceptive book provides a fascinating read for lovers of thoughtful, imaginative and well-written travel literature'

  Frank Barrett, THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

  'A charming travel companion, entertaining and engaging'

  TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

  TICKET TO RIDE

  Copyright © Tom Chesshyre, 2016

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.

  Tom Chesshyre has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Summersdale Publishers Ltd

  46 West Street

  Chichester

  West Sussex

  PO19 1RP

  UK

  www.summersdale.com

  eISBN: 978-1-78372-811-4

  Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details contact Nicky Douglas by telephone: +44 (0) 1243 756902, fax: +44 (0) 1243 786300 or email: [email protected].

  For all train lovers

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tom Chesshyre's train travels include an 11,000-mile journey around Europe for his book on the European high-speed train revolution, and thousands of miles more across the UK for his weekly hotel column in The Times. He lives in London, and has visited almost 100 countries for his writing.

  Tom is the author of How Low Can You Go?: Round Europe for 1p Each Way (Plus Tax), To Hull and Back: On Holiday in Unsung Britain, Tales from the Fast Trains: Europe at 186 mph, A Tourist in the Arab Spring and Gatecrashing Paradise: Misadventures in the Real Maldives.

  www.tomchesshyre.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Crewe Station, England: 'I'd go anywhere for a 37'

  Chapter Two

  Kosovo and Macedonia: 'You can spot a gricer a mile away'

  Chapter Three

  China: Fast noodles and revolutions

  Chapter Four

  India: Taking the toy train

  Chapter Five

  Sri Lanka: On the Reunification Express

  Chapter Six

  Turkey and Iran: 'We heartily welcome honourable tourists'

  Chapter Seven

  Finland, Russia and China: The big red train ride

  Chapter Eight

  Australia: Mutiny on the Indian Pacific

  Chapter Nine

  America: Trains, planes and automobiles (mainly trains)

  Chapter Ten

  Bordeaux, France: Fast train coming

  Chapter Eleven

  China; North Korea; Italy to Poland; Peru; Spain; Switzerland to Italy; Poland, Kaliningrad and Lithuania: Trains, trains, trains

  Chapter Twelve

  Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh and Mallaig to Glasgow, Scotland; Kent and East Sussex, England: For the love of trains

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Trains Taken

  Bibliography

  The time indicated on the timetable is not the time at which the train will leave; it is the time before which the train will definitely not leave

  Sign at Agra station, India

  Look at that: a 1953 EA! WOOO-HOOO! Oh yeah, listen to that bell! Yeah, listen to that bell! Oh my God! WOOO-HOOO! She's so beautiful! All right!

  Rail enthusiast in North Creek, New York

  1

  CREWE STATION, ENGLAND: 'I'D GO ANYWHERE FOR A 37'

  IT'S AN OVERCAST day at the end of platform five of Crewe railway station. An icy wind whips across the tracks, rattling a spiky metal fence. Every now and then, a train clatters past. The rails crackle and hiss, rumble and groan.

  Time ticks slowly during a lull. A sleek cherry-red train adorned with the message ARRIVE AWESOME emerges beneath the leaden north-west English sky. It's the 17:05 Virgin service to Manchester. This event draws the attention of my companions. 'Pendolino', says one of the group. He's wearing a woolly hat, heavy-framed glasses and an ill-fitting black jacket. A flask of tea pokes out of his rucksack and a camera is looped round his neck. He does not raise his camera. 'Sardine can', he says dismissively.

  'Dog box', says his friend, a giant figure in his early twenties (I'd guess) with ginger hair. He carries an old-fashioned shoulder bag and is peering through Buddy-Holly-style glasses. The way the giant says 'dog box' suggests this is not a term of endearment. 'A Pendolino, class 153,' he adds.

  The first man says, 'Awful thing.'

  The giant says, 'Ah, they drag.'

  I am not sure what he means by this, but it does not sound complimentary either. The train moves onwards to Manchester. Silence resumes.

  I ask the giant how tall he is, learning that he is 7 feet 4 inches and so good at b
asketball that he may join an American college team. 'When I get the ball, I just put it in the net: whoom!' he tells me. Not many trainspotters at the end of platform five at Crewe station over the years can have been able to claim that.

  'The 422 was on the Nantwich line earlier,' says a tiny elderly man wearing two anoraks (yes, two) and a woolly hat. He glances up at the giant, who seems to be the group's leading train authority.

  The giant corrects him: 'It was a 37422, with a 68001. A DRS.'

  'Ahhhh,' says the tiny elderly man.

  I ask the giant what DRS stands for. He looks at me with surprise. 'Direct Rail Services,' he says. This is the name of a freight operator.

  'Three 37s are coming in a moment,' says the giant.

  'I'd go anywhere for a 37,' says the man with the flask of tea.

  The group edges towards the end of the platform, where a debate breaks out.

  'It's set for platform three,' says a bald man in a denim jacket and a red shirt with a Virgin Trains logo. As might be expected, many rail company employees have an interest in trains.

  'For ****'s sake!' says the giant.

  He and the Virgin Trains man begin to sprint away, apparently heading for platform three.

  The tiny elderly man wearing two anoraks, the man with the flask of tea and I watch them depart. They are uncertain whether the 37s will go to platform three. As I do not feel like racing around Crewe station on a chilly overcast day in the north-west of England, I decide to stick with their camp. Their opinion, however, changes as the 37s draw near. They look nervously at one another.

  'Shall we?' asks the man with the tea.

  'Yes! Yes!' Double-anorak nods.

  They scurry off, clutching cameras that would otherwise swing wildly from their necks. I follow my new companions.

  Regular passengers look on with bewilderment. We must make quite a spectacle. We arrive moments after the 37s have come to a halt. We have reached platform one, which is deemed to have the best view of the freight locomotives.

  The giant says, 'Very fine examples of a 37.'

  The Virgin Trains man says, 'Proper locos.'

  The man wearing two anoraks, panting from his run, says, 'Locos. 1960s. English electric. Type three. Class 37. Over fifty years old.'

  They snap away. The man with the flask of tea says he takes 200 shots a day, but will edit them to 60. Many of these will be posted online. We admire the three locomotives: solidly built with navyblue bodies and bulbous mustard-yellow noses. DIRECT RAIL SERVICES is written on their sides. They are unlike any I can remember seeing on British railways – more like something you might expect to see crossing the American West – though I have never, admittedly, previously kept an eye out for class-37 freight locos at Crewe station.

  I ask the group if they have spotted them before.

  'Oh, many times. They're old friends,' says the Virgin Trains employee, not lifting his gaze from the locos.

  I ask what they like most about trains.

  'The smell of diesel. The sight of steam,' says the giant.

  The man with two anoraks looks far away for a moment, as though recalling a long-lost love or a happy moment from his youth. Perhaps he is. After a while, he says, 'I just like travel and trains – always have done.'

  The Virgin Trains employee cuts in: 'Why do we like trains? Why do we like them?' He pauses and lets the repeated question sink in. Of the four, he seems the most defensive about their passion for railways. He looks me squarely in the eyes. A horn blows across the tracks. Muffled announcements echo in the concourse. The engines of the 37 freight locomotives judder and grumble.

  'Well,' he says. 'Well, I think you've just seen why.'

  I suppose I have. What is it about trains? Trainspotters at Crewe station may be an extreme example of 'train love', but most people seem to have a soft spot for rail travel. Ask just about anyone what they think of travelling by train and a thoughtful expression tends to flicker across the features, often accompanied by a warm smile and a glint in the eye.

  'There's a romance about trains,' is a common reply. 'I just like looking out of the window, seeing the world go by,' is another. 'I hate being stuck in a car or cooped up in a plane,' some will say. 'It's the motion: the clickety-clack,' say others. Or: 'You get to see places away from the mainstream, places you wouldn't otherwise visit.' Or: 'They're a greener way to go.' And, popular with those frustrated by the fast pace of modern life: 'I like to slow down; to stop rushing about; to take a break from it all.'

  Underlying each response seems to be a gut feeling that trains offer a calmer, less stressful, more illuminating and somehow more real way of getting from A to B than other forms of travel.

  Flying and driving just don't seem to elicit the same reaction. Why is that?

  In his book The Old Patagonian Express, the great train-travel writer Paul Theroux describes a satisfactory flight as being one in which there is no accident, the food's OK and you arrive on time. You enter a dingy fuselage, he says, and count the minutes till you land.

  That's as good as flying gets, according to Theroux, and I'm with him on that. A decent drive has a similar checklist: you did not have an accident; you did not get stuck in traffic; you did not break down; you avoided a speeding ticket; you arrived, more or less on schedule, without any dents in your bumpers. Yes, there are some famously beautiful drives and, let's face it, the experience is likely to be slightly different in a Maserati than in a battered Ford Mondeo, but most of the time driving involves little more than facing straight ahead, keeping an eye on the petrol gauge… and trying not to get sucked into road rage.

  Perhaps it is the tedium of driving along characterless motorways or flying between identikit airports in identikit planes that has fuelled a recent bubble of interest in train travel. It certainly seems as though this rather quaint form of getting about that dates from the early nineteenth century – so old-fashioned next to super-jumbos, private jets, low-cost transatlantic flights, £30 hops on Wizz Air around Europe and the latest £200,000 sports cars drooled over by Jeremy Clarkson – is enjoying a quiet revival.

  Facts and figures, plus many a nostalgic television programme starring Michael Portillo clasping a copy of Bradshaw's rail guide, seem to bear this out. While the precise number is tricky to establish, the current total length of railway tracks across the world is believed to be approximately 725,000 miles. This works out as the equivalent of an extraordinary 34 lines around the circumference of the globe. During a period when airlines have boomed with headline-grabbing prices catching the public's imagination, trains have been prospering too – the only difference being that word does not always get out as new tracks and services are local, so they tend to slip beneath the radar. A new railway in India or China might easily pass us by, while a cut-price fare from Gatwick to, say, Florida or Bangkok will be hard to miss: advertised across the media in papers, on TV and online.

  Digging about a bit, however, it's clear that train travel is enjoying a resurgence not seen for many a year. Just take what's going on in Europe. In France, the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) network grows annually, with speeds increasing so much that some Parisians sick of the big smoke are considering moving to Bordeaux and commuting from there. In Spain, trains now zoom through most of the plains thanks to forward-thinking investment in tracks. As I write, this country has the most extensive set of high-speed lines in Europe, covering more than 1,900 miles. In Italy, millions of euros have been spent on long-distance routes between Milan and Naples and a line linking Milan and Zurich via a 38-mile tunnel through the Alps. The NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the world's longest train tunnel and will shave an hour off the current trip, reducing the journey time to 2 hours and 50 minutes. Swiss authorities have taken 20 years to complete the digging, during which 31 million tonnes of earth have been moved at a cost of £6.5 billion. Elsewhere, high-speed railways now connect Kraków and Gdynia via Warsaw and Gdańsk in Poland, where a network of lines is growing rapidly. In Britain, resista
nce to new tracks has been understandably fierce among those who do not want disruption near their homes, but work on High Speed 2, from London up to Birmingham and onwards in a Y-shape to Leeds and Manchester, is due to start, with extensions to Newcastle and Scotland under consideration.