Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts
Breakfast in bed and the romance of train travel revisited
Is there anyone out there who doesn't love train travel? I was pleased to see some of the comments in praise of rail travel on my recent post about Australia's transcontinental train, the Indian Pacific as I was thinking perhaps I'd just mellowed too much (read: aged). But Stella Stopfer from European Travelling Advisor wrote "One of the best ways to travel is definitely by train, wherever you go. I agree, there is nothing like the old "slow" trains most of us are used to. Gazing out the window, enjoying the scenery, writing...or reading a book...just amazing." While Pam from Nerd's Eye View said "Yes, yes, yes, I do love the sound of the train and watching the landscape go by in not quite a blur out the window. It's a GREAT way to travel, you can breathe and stand and read and nap and still watch the world roll by at a very reasonable pace that makes you understand distance." There's no denying the appeal of the slow pace, the scenery rolling by, the fact that we're forced to take it easy, and the freedom to move around and socialize, but does everyone find it as romantic as I do? I know I reflected on the romance of train travel fairly recently when I wrote about our journey on The Ghan from Alice Springs to Darwin (read that post here), however, I can't resist ruminating a little bit more. After all, how many other forms of travel in the 21st century are as romantic? Travel by cruise ship, for instance, doesn't have the same allure as it did in, say, Now, Voyager. When I think of cruises I either think of long dull days spent at sea or debauched boozefests. Plane travel? Nothing needs to be said there. But what is it exactly that makes rail travel so romantic? Is it the retro decor and plush interiors of a sumptuous dining carriage? Old-fashioned touches and personal service like a glass of champagne on departure, nightcaps by the bedside, and breakfast on a tray in bed? Or is it the social setting that encourages board games and card-playing in the lounge, pre-dinner cocktails with the tinkling of piano keys in the background, or tables for four that force passengers to sit together and enjoy shared conversation with fascinating strangers? That last one is not necessary romantic, but the notion is a romantic one in an age where social interaction is often limited to love affairs with i-pods, blackberries and i-phones. Don't you think?
Train noise... the ideal soundtrack to tracking shots of epic landscapes
Don't you love a train that still goes clackety clack clackety clack? The Indian Pacific may not make that precise sound but it does make noise and that's one of the things I loved about it. Japan's Kawasaki company may be developing a new fast train to criss-cross the tiny country at a super-speedy 350 km per hour, but in this colossal place that is Australia travellers' seem to like that the Indian Pacific averages just 85 km an hour and takes three days to traverse this vast space. Indeed the slow pace is an intrinsic part of the appeal of the Indian Pacific's 4,352 km journey. As well as reflecting a growing global trend toward slow travel and a more general desire to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life more (one of the most popular activities among guests socializing in the Platinum lounge on the Indian Pacific was board games and cards), I think it also reflects a need by travellers (both Australian and foreign) to fully grasp the immensity of Australia and understand just how wide its wide open spaces are. Something you wouldn't properly appreciate if you whizzed through it all at 300km per hour in a day or so and the majestic scenery outside was merely a blur. While Kawasaki's press statement boasts that their new train will be super-quiet, I think I'd miss those familiar train sounds of metal against metal, the grinding on the tracks, the occasional screeches, the increase in volume as you step from one carriage into another, and all of it punctuated by an eery silence (spookiest in the velvety black of the night) when the train stops to wait for a freight train to pass by. To me, train noise is the ideal soundtrack to the endless tracking shots of epic landscapes that roll by the window on a train trip in Australia.Another thing I loved about Platinum service was the ability to see out the windows on both sides of the train from within our cabin. Our window out to the corridor was aligned with the window on the other side of the train so as to enable some serious scenery absorption. That, combined with the slow pace and clackety-clack soundtrack was very conducive to some wonderful train-dreaming.
Pictured? A view of the Western Australian wheatbelt a few hours out of Perth through the wooden blinds from our window. The blinds did go up, by the way. I just loved looking at the landscapes through the horizontal lines.
The Indian Pacific: from ocean to ocean across Australia by train
Don't you love the notion of travelling from one ocean to another on a train? That's one of the things that has always made the idea of a journey on the Indian Pacific so alluring for me. And after years of dreaming about it, I'm pleased we did it... well, part of it... the Perth to Adelaide sector. Australia's only transcontinental route, the Indian Pacific transports travellers some 4,352 kilometres from the country's most remote capital city, Perth, and the Indian Ocean, across this colossal land to Sydney, Australia's largest city, and the Pacific Ocean. Hence the name, the Indian Pacific. For Australians, it's one of those classic trips - like driving the Great Ocean Road or doing the Red Centre - one of our great journeys that every Aussie tries to do at least once in their life. Most save the trip for their retirement, so they can afford to do in style in Gold class. Others brave the Red service, where they can opt for snug sleepers or sit up for the entire three-day journey - yep, that's right three whole days. We were booked into Gold, but were upgraded to the new Platinum service, just recently introduced on the Indian Pacific. We were a tad disappointed (well, for a minute or two!) as we had wanted to compare the Gold experience with our previous trip in Platinum from Alice Springs to Darwin on The Ghan (read about that trip here) - all in the name of research for the guidebooks we're writing, of course. But it's hard to knock back the Platinum cabin's comfort and space - a whopping 3.65 x 2.1metres! - which makes the cabins feel like tiny hotel rooms. We did get to do a tour of the Gold sleepers and as comfortable enough as they look, the Platinum cabins can't be beaten. The space allowed us to sprawl out in the room, spread out our things, work at the table, and - once the beds are made in the evening (ever so discretely while we were at dinner), spread out on the bed and watch a DVD on the laptop. And the private bathroom with toilet, shower and sink is also hard to beat. Platinum is expensive though, around Aus $3,300 on the Indian Pacific (see all fares here), which is why many Australian travellers consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I try not to think of travel in that way; I like to always think we can return to certain places one day. But I'm not sure how many times you'd want to spend three days on a train - as much as I like being able to say I've travelled from ocean to ocean across Australia on the Indian Pacific.
The Ghan: nothing like the romance of train travel to rekindle a love for travel
There's a certain romance about train travel that's hard to imagine if you're sleeping upright in cattle class on an overnight interstate train trip in Australia. Ugh. But Australia now has something that comes close to the likes of the luxurious Venice Simplon Orient Express in the romantic train stakes - the new Platinum class service on The Ghan. Named after the Afghan cameleers who trekked the same route from South Australia to 'the red centre' in the Northern Territory with their camel trains in the 19th century, the shiny silver Ghan takes two days and nights to travel the 3,000 kilometres between Adelaide, Alice Springs, Katherine and Darwin. And then it trundles all the way back again. While you can travel on the Red or Gold Service, sleeping upright or on bunks in a snug sleeper cabin, respectively, the spacious Platinum class rooms (pictured) with flat beds, offer a level of comfort that's incomparable to other trains in Australia - as we were lucky to find out for ourselves recently! I'd spent my birthday working until the wee hours of the morning emailing files and maps to editors in London before we hit the road for a few months, and the next night Terry and I were hastily packing until the wee hours of the morning, trying to anticipate what we were likely to forget - aside from sleep and our senses of humour. So perhaps we appreciated that welcome glass of champagne a little more than the other passengers. And the bedside nightcap after dinner. And the coffee delivered to us in bed soon after dawn. There’s an endearingly old-fashioned restaurant car where three course meals were served with a smile (the staff are incredibly warm and friendly) and a smart-looking lounge bar, but our spacious rooms with private bathroom (including shower and toilet!) were very difficult to leave. Our two single beds were made up and stowed away while we dined, leaving plenty of room for us sit back and put up our feet and take in the changing scenery from either side of the train. Not that we had much time to enjoy it. Whistle-stop tours en route range from an early morning hot air balloon ride across the arid Alice Springs desert to an exhilarating helicopter flight over spectacular Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park. We chose the latter - and it was thrilling! My main complaint about The Ghan? Not enough time on the train; I probably could have done without the tours. I enjoyed gazing at the stars from my bed so much and got a such a kick out of waking up with sunshine in my face, that I would have liked to have spent more time on board and spent longer watching the scenery change.
Slow travel: train-dreaming
"Journeys are the mid-wives of thought", writes Alain de Botton in my favorite book, Art of Travel. But of all the modes of transport that are most conducive to "internal conversation", to thinking and to dreaming, the best, he believes, is the train. He writes "On a journey across flat country, I think with a rare lack of inhibition about the death of my father, about an essay I am writing on Stendahl and about a mistrust that has arisen between two friends. Every time my mind goes blank, having hit on a difficult idea, the flow of consciousness is assisted by the possibility of looking out the window, locking on to an object and following it for a few seconds, until a new coil of thought is ready to form and can unravel without pressure. At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves." I also appreciate road trips for those reasons, but on road trips you have to worry about who or what else is on the road, about petrol, signs and navigation, whereas on a train someone else is at the wheel and your mind is more free to wander. While the car gives the body freedom to move across a country, the train allows the mind to travel anywhere.If you want to travel slowly by train and are looking for inspiration, check out The Man in Seat 61, which is not only the best resource for train travel on the web, with links to railway all over the world, train schedules and ticket-sellers, it's also incredibly inspiring with descriptions and photos from train journeys, from the Venice Simplon Orient Express to the Swiss Glacier Express.