Trains on the Brain Savour the journey & travel by train

The trouble with travelogue blogs

There’s no shortage of  ’travelogue style’ rail blogs out there. I’ve found so many it’s not even interesting. These are fine for people just wanting to record their trips while still fresh in their minds and share them with jealous friends and family back home, some of them have fun anecdotes and one or two nice pics, but few of them transcend this. Usually they survive only as long as the journey themselves and the afterglow of the bloggers’ memories.

From James Brown's on the rails

Now, this is not to say that there aren’t some really good personal rail blogs out there with pretty useful, evergreen content, but you do have to dig for them. Check out my main man James Brown’s (neither defunct sex machine nor ex-lad mag publisher) blog on the rails which chronicles his 2 month, 19,000 kilometre trip around America and Canada in 2006. He even took the trouble to retrospectively update the section on the various rail pass options once that information lost its currency.  There is also the excellent Behind the Water Tower, a blog about Polish railways, which has a lot of interesting social history and consumer-action-type commentary.  But the fact is that such railblogs are sadly all too rare.

Beijing South Station from Amazing Architecture via Behind The Water Tower

Blog standards

Then there are those ‘personal blogs’ sponsored by rail companies keen to inspire would-be inter-railers to follow in their tracks, part with some Benjamins and divest themselves of a shiny new interrail pass. You’d think these would be better right? There are some pretty big international and national rail companies behind them after all, fighting what must seem like a losing battle with the easyjets and ryanairs of this world. Well, think again folks.

The trouble with these is that they tend to be bland, brief, sloppily written and devoid of any real insight. They insult the intelligence of their readers and effectively do the companies sponsoring them a disservice. It’s a big mistake to assume that just because most inter-railers are young and carefree, they’re also willing to lap up any old piffle along the lines of ‘we had one too many cervezas last night and missed our stop, but had a laff with some friendly Germans on the platform who lent us their bottle opener’, accompanied by a few thumbs-up in front of the Eiffel Tower pictures.

Frankly those young wanderlust-crazed whipper-snappers out there, with their bangin’ dubgrind music and asymmetrical haircuts, deserve better than half arsed, aspirational, typo-littered condescension. If you really want to read crap like that, go out and buy this book, available in all good charity shops and pulp mills. If you have low standards, and like to read a bunch of Brits aboard doing little beyond reinforcing some of the worst elements of our national stereotype, then buy it today. You won’t regret it.

Image: Marjoribanks2010

Older-Rail

And what about the many older travellers who want the exploration without sacrificing comfort and a reasonable level of convenience? They don’t all want to slum it in hostels with folks closer to their children’s (or even grand children’s) age than their own, live on street food and sleep six to a couchette. Since many retired folk have more time and cash to play with, they’re more likely to embrace the whole ‘slow travel’ ethos and are thus more receptive to taking long train trips, instead of deadening flights and package holidays. This does not necessarily make them hardened eco-warriors. They just want to savour the journey, see more of the world unravelling behind them and do it at their own pace.

What about them, who’s writing with them in mind, where are their travel blogs? (If you know a few, apart from those hosted by the Slow Travel site, please point me towards them btw.)

Image: Evissa, model railway shop, Sheffield

Reservations required

Hopefully this blog will speak to some of these people, giving them a chance to swap tips and share their passion with travellers of a similar bent.

But it also needs to ‘tell it like it is.’ The problem with many ‘commercial’ ecotravel sites is that they need to pump out a consistent marketing message to be heard, establish their brand and make their sites viable enough to attract relevant advertisers and pay the hosting bill. Their message is simple: travelling by train is much better than flying for a whole host of compelling reasons. Trouble is, life’s never that simple is it?  Now obviously I agree with and endorse their core message, but these pro-rail sites sometimes conveniently ignore the counter arguments and become blind to the general imperfection of the whole rail travel experience. This is summed up neatly by this article by Tony Naylor in the Guardian. Take a scroll through the very long comment thread and of course the Man in Seat 61′s considered response to get the drift.

Since this blog makes me no money I have no particular agenda to push and can be honest about the frustrations rail passengers encounter and encourage those commenting to do likewise.

It will attempt to suggest ways of getting round these. Travel round Europe on a budget without compromising comfort. Use budget airlines if you must, but don’t let them use you. Savour the journey and save your money. Have your cake and eat it. Eventually I hope I can add my own small voice to the growing lobby putting pressure on those who have the power to change things and make travelling by train a cheaper and more practical alternative to flying.

The environmental arguments in favour of rail travel cannot be ignored of course but nor can the fact that these preach mostly to the converted. The majority of people will continue to vote with their wallets for the time being with their heads in the clouds. It’s up to governments, train companies and regulators to help trains beat planes. Subsidise it and they will come.

What do you think? Is the dream of green travel and the new dawn for rail travel an out-of-reach luxury concocted by spoilt, middle class broadsheet travel editors? What can we do to bring it closer to reality? We really wanna see those fingers…

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