Trains on the Brain Savour the journey & travel by train

I know what you’ve been thinking.  ’What the hell has been going on in trainland for the past seven days? Goddamit I’ve barely had a moment’s sleep fussing over it the past week. Just who the hell does this Jools fellow think he is keeping us on tenterhooks like this?  Let’s round up a lynch mob sharpish and string him up by his bootlaces from the nearest railroad crossing.’

Well hang on just a darn cotton pickin’ minute there because the almighty locomotive of rail news of  interest to myself and seven other people is about to bullet into town.

This week’s Rail Good Find!

InterRail Alternatives

My pick of the week this time goes to promising new travel blogger and photographer Jonny Whitlam for his myth busting post on alternatives to the time-honoured gap year tradition of Inter Railing.  Jonny argues quite sensibly that depending on where you plan to travel in Europe it can often be cheaper to buy individual tickets or combine it with buses.

This is especially true in parts of Eastern and Central Europe as he points out and in parts of the Balkans where, for example, you can cut your journey in half by getting a bus form Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast to Istanbul. Then again, who wants to sit in a smelly coach for 8 hours?  It does beg the question as to whether InterRail is gradually falling out of favour with the travelling yoot of today.

This great find came via the lovely Cathy Sweeney of the fine Travelling with Sweeney blog.

Back to Back with Amtrak

Now here’s a dream gig for you.  Observer journalist Anna Pickard snubbed the warnings of her American friends and spent 15 days travelling some 6,500 miles across America on woebegone national operator Amtrak, taking in Seattle, Chicago, LA, New Orleans and San Fransisco along the way, the lucky little chipolata.  She found it a ‘soul calming’ experience gliding through such vast expanses of landscape, watching the grain silos slide by her window.  I’m with her all the way: I can feel my own soul unfurling with a purr of contentment just reading her account.  It’s a journey we have pencilled in for our Honeymoon in the next year or two.

Get Motorinoing

Here’s quite a handy 10 point guide to getting around Italy by rail with Tenitalia, courtesy of the Italy Inside blog.  Regular readers may remember my own slightly frustrating experience with the vagaries of the Italian transport network in rural Tuscany a few posts back, so it’s worth getting a bit of inside track from the man who amusingly refers to himself in the third person as Motorino Man.

Sounds like a motivational speaker doesn’t he? Hopefully his tips will motivate you enough to give the Italian train network a try and explore such bella cittas as Rome, Florence and Venice. Rather charmingly he advises you to ‘bring some bread and proscuitto with you’ for the journey, possibly in a little red spotted hanky tied to a broom handle. Boun Viaggio!

Who would swindle the Swiss?

Well apparently Joanna of the Kaleidoscopc Wandering blog would.  But seeing as she loves train travel so much we might let her off . In this post she explains how to take full advantage of the super clean, hyper efficient Swiss rail network, including the pros and cons of buying the various Swiss Rail passes and taking a dip in the Swiss Chocolate Train which slides with velvety smoothness from Montreaux all the way deep into Gruyere country.

Eurostar and Duetsche Bahn  seal the deal

In my last round up I looked at the competition between the two European rail powers. A pleasing development since then has been an agreement between DB and Eurostar to work together in High Speed rail projects throughout Europe from 2013 onwards.

Japans’ Model Hotel

How much do you love model railways? Nope, me neither. But clearly some people in Japan do as there’s now a hotel offering luxury suites for an eye-watering £695 per night with the room’s centrepiece being the country’s largest model railway.  The 6 foot wide diorama complete with a temple, snow capped mountains and urban skyscrapers can be found in Hotel Metropolitan in the town of Nagano. Read the full story in the Telegraph if you don’t believe me.

Canucks on a Train

Carrying on the wee Canadian theme I’ve had going on here recently I was pleased to hear about the Milepost Wilderness Rail service where hardy adventurers are encouraged to make the most of Canada’s great outdoors by train. These ecotourism services are particularly geared towards outdoorsy types as they allow you to bring your own kayaks, canoes and other hiking trappings on board on the train. The services stretch from Sault Ste Marie on the American border as far as Hearst in Northern Ontario.  Special thanks to Bommergirl50 one half of the superlative Canadian Road Stories blog for providing me with this information.

Trains v Trolleys

The sweet folks at St Augustine Travel Guide need you to answer a pressing question for them. The need to know which method of transport looks better for exploring their fine Florida city with: Green trolleys buses or dinky little red road trains?  I’ll admit to being a little torn myself.

Iceland’s Ash Clouds set to Smoulder again

News just in, it looks like Iceland’s volcanoes are in danger of playing up again, with a possible repeat of the massive air travel disruption caused earlier this year in Europe.  If I was really evil I could do a little ash cloud dance in hope that they do go into another sulpherous tizzy, making more people look into rail options and so check out this blog!  But I wouldn’t do that would I?

Well I think that’s enough armchair adventuring for one week, but if you’ve happened across any nuggets of railroad gold yourself do the right thing and share them with the rest of the class with a comment.

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