Twin-track approach – An Irishman’s Diary about the joys of rail travel, fast and slow

I’m not sure which was the more extraordinary of two recent news stories about rail travel: the report that Japan’s maglev test-trains had set a new world record of 603kph; or the launch of that Irish version of the Orient Express, which will have trips lasting up to six days.

Both developments seem to challenge our understanding of space and time. When eventually deployed between Tokyo and Nagoya, the maglevs are expected to halve the duration of already-fast commute, while always preserving a 10 cm gap between themselves and the tracks.

The Belmond Grand Hibernian, by contrast, will be much more grounded. In its own way, it sounds like science fiction to suggest you could stretch a rail-based tour of this small island to the same length of time it takes the Trans-Siberian Express to reach Vladivostock.

But I see from the itinerary of the week-long “Grand Tour” that the train will do such things as “stable for the night” in Charleville. Insofar as there’s any emphasis on horsepower, clearly, it relates to the more relaxed pace of travel Irish tourists experienced in the days of Bianconi.

Anyway, as a lover of trains, fast and slow, I wish both developments well, although for reasons financial (the Grand Tour starts at Stg£5,650) and chronological (the first maglev is scheduled for 2027), I may not experience either.

No matter. I’ve been on both the maglev’s predecessor, the Bullet Train, and the actual Orient Express (or a version of it) so I can’t complain. I don’t remember much about the Bullet Train, to be honest. It was 25 years ago, and not only is it a bit of a blur now, it must have been a blur then too.

My Orient Express trip was more eventful, although it cheated on the fabled original in at least two ways. Firstly, it ran between Rome and Venice, which with the exception of Venice had no part in the classic route. And even then, our schedule involved some sleight-of-hand.

As we chugged northwards out of Ostiense station at 8pm, the vintage carriages were authentically noisy: so much so that in bed later, I would be woken several times as we continued rattling headlong into the night. But there was the rub, because in between, over dinner, I couldn’t help noticing that we were already half-way to Venice.

And so we should have been. We were sharing the rails with Italy’s modern-day trains, which do Rome-Venice in four hours. So, short of entering an Alpine time tunnel en route, how could we be dragging the trip out until breakfast?

I had to ask a waiter, finally, and a little of the magic died when he told me we’d be doing a loop back to Rome later, before resuming our assault on Venice in earnest.

Oh well, I’ve had some genuinely long train journeys too: all memorable, for better or worse. There was the night sleeper from St Petersburgh to Moscow once, when I had to share the compartment with a Russian businessmen who insisted I join him for dinner, and wouldn’t taken nyet for an answer then or on the numerous occasions when our waitress, Tatiana, offered to refill our vodka glasses.

The trip passed as quickly as a Japanese maglev. Unfortunately, the hangover was more like the Belmond Grand Hibernian — it went on for several days.

Or there was another night train, on an Inter-rail holiday during Italy’s high season. It was full when we got on: we had to sit on the floor between carriages. But the train then stopped at every house between Genoa and Rome. And at each stop, more people got on, clambering over us with big suitcases. I still don’t know where they all went: there must have been another mystery loop somewhere.

But the longest rail trip I ever made, psychologically if not in Newtonian time, was in India: from Udaipur to New Delhi. My wife and I had booked the bottom bunks in a six-berth compartment, which we ended up sharing with two local couples and their three small children.

Decency demanded that we relinquish the bottom bunks to the families and retire — at an unfeasibly early hour — to the top ones, which were too near the ceiling to sit on. The rest of the journey was spent prostrate, claustrophobic, and hot. Of course there was no bar anywhere, or we’d have passed the night there instead. Sleep was impossible, and the trip seemed to last forever. But it didn’t, obviously, because as I still have to remind myself occasionally: it’s over now.

@FrankmcnallyIT