Your most memorable train journeys (well, except Trans-Siberian and E/O Express)
Jan 23, 2018, 6:18 am
#31
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Anyway it's not clear why folks' most memorable train rides can't be on a particular train - what difference does it make? Or why said trip can't be from when one was younger, which for some was just a few years ago!
Jan 23, 2018, 7:15 am
#32
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Most locals and "non-tourists" don't take it end-to-end and the majority never have. Tourists are generally taking it end-to-end (though not everyone does) but most of the passengers at any given moment are non-tourists. It's not a specialized luxury tourist train or something as you seem to be implying. In many ways it's analogous to taking Amtrak coast-to-coast. TS is a great trip with lots of interesting folks to meet and sights to see - and if it isn't a very memorable trip you're doing it wrong!
Jan 23, 2018, 4:09 pm
#33
Join Date: Jun 2012
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Not exactly on topic but relevant, I was reading TA questions about high speed rail trains a while back and someone was asking about schedules for regular trains because "I like looking outside at the countryside and don't want to take the high speed train because everything will be blurry as we go past." 
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Jan 23, 2018, 5:18 pm
#35
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I did this in reverse in 2004. I woke up at around 4am, train not moving, stuck in a field in Italy. The train stopped, something happened up ahead, and they bussed everyone to Verona. Didnt make it to Venice until a week later.
Jan 24, 2018, 7:47 am
#36
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I'm taking the liberty to post here a response I made on Fodor's many years ago to a thread entitled "The Kindness of Strangers." It covers a memorable train journey in Europe one night.
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We were traveling from Amsterdam to the south of France, via the sleeper train from Brussels to Nice etc. When we got to our compartment in Brussels, the conductor told us that the last supper sitting was about to happen, so if we wanted dinner we should hustle forward to the dining car or else have to live on “snack bar” food or worse till morning. We left everything in the compartment, which he said he would lock.
At dinner we shared a table with a fascinating Canadian man who was working with an international agriculture agency (NGO) headquartered in The Hague. He was traveling to Paris that evening. We were intrigued by his stories – he had worked all over the world and had witnessed things like the fall of Saigon, Tehran during the hostage crisis, things like that. I absentmindedly noticed during dinner that the train had stopped somewhere in western Belgium or eastern France; somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. But then it started again and all was fine.
Dinner lasted through dessert, then coffee, then a brandy, and we were swapping stories and having a fine old time, until the dining car people started ahem-ing rather loudly, so we bid our adieus and we headed back to our compartment.
We didn’t make it all the way. I looked through the little window in the door between the last seating coach and the first sleeper, and saw…tracks, receding into the dusk. Evidently the stop during dinner had been when they’d disconnected the sleeping cars and attached them to a different train, which was now headed south to the Cote d’Azur, while we were standing in the remains of the train that was now barreling toward Paris. Oops.
When I say we left everything in the sleeping compartment, I mean everything – plane tickets, bags, passports, coats, cameras, toothbrushes, everything. My wife, bless her, had taken her handbag to dinner, in it her wallet, in that her credit and cash cards and drivers license, and maybe 100 Belgian Francs and a couple of Guilder. No FF.
We went a-searching for a conductor or anyone in a uniform, and found nobody, except our Canadian dinner companion. We explained what had happened, and he offered to help as best he could, which none of us knew how to define.
We ended up back in the dining car, where the only person present was the headwaiter, counting and sorting the various banknotes left for tabs and tips. By this point my and my wife’s French had well and truly given out (“Please, how do you say imbecile?”) but our Canadian friend came to the rescue, explained our plight, and the waiter grudgingly agreed to call the conductor, who he knew was up in the locomotive schmoozing with the drivers (at least I hope that was all.)
The conductor arrives, our friend explains, and we receive a world-class series of Gallic shrugs. Can he see our tickets? Geez, no, they’re on the OTHER TRAIN.
Well, you’ll have to wait until we get to Paris, which is now an hour or so away, and maybe someone there can sort you out. I ask (through our new interpreter) what happens if the sleeper train arrives at its terminus (Ventimiglia, just over the Italian border) and nobody’s in our compartment. Well, he said, your stuff is piled on the station platform. Okey-dokey.
We arrive at the station in Paris (Gare de l’Est I think) and it’s late and everything’s shut. The conductor points the 3 of us toward the station manager’s office, shrugs, and vanishes. We march up to the office and our friend talks our way into the office, where we meet the SNCF station manager, a chain-smoking woman in a pixy cut and a black-on-black outfit. Our friend tells our story to her, and (I kid you not) she looks at us, grimaces, and says, “Oo la la..” In my many days and nights in France I have never had this said to me before or since.
The three of us stand there, two of us sheepish, while she goes through a couple more Gauloises. She says something to our Canadian savior, and he tells us he’s been dismissed. He’s now a couple of hours overdue for his hotel (early meeting the next day) so we thank him for the hundredth time and he goes.
The station manager asks us (French, but I’m managing, sort of) if we have any French money. No. Do we have an ATM card? Yes. Okay, you will need around 500F (around $80 at that time), get it from the ATM in the main concourse. Why? You’ll see.
She picks up the phone and barks words, and presently a smallish Algerian or Tunisian man appears. She writes a note on a slip of paper, shows him, and hands it to me. It says “Valentin.” More barking at the guy, then okay, she says, go with him, via the ATM. Bon chance (Gringos.)
I use my wife’s cash card at the ATM, trying with partial success to keep the guy from seeing the PIN. He leads us out into the night (pretty chilly and us with no coats) to his – aha – taxi.
We then roar through the night, up on to the Peripherique, making like a Mirage, out of town to the south.
Half an hour later he pulls off the Autoroute and onto a side road, then another turn and we are on a dirt road, deep in the dark boondocks. My wife is contemplating swallowing her wedding ring at this point. We bump along for a couple of minutes until we come to a lone house with a light on. Our driver goes to the door and knocks on it; a man in an undershirt appears (PO’d possibly?) and indicates no, you idiot, not here. More bumping and we come to another identical building. Another knock, this time the guy’s in a shirt. Yes, this is it. Get out, go in. It is about 2 AM.
-------------
---------
We were traveling from Amsterdam to the south of France, via the sleeper train from Brussels to Nice etc. When we got to our compartment in Brussels, the conductor told us that the last supper sitting was about to happen, so if we wanted dinner we should hustle forward to the dining car or else have to live on “snack bar” food or worse till morning. We left everything in the compartment, which he said he would lock.
At dinner we shared a table with a fascinating Canadian man who was working with an international agriculture agency (NGO) headquartered in The Hague. He was traveling to Paris that evening. We were intrigued by his stories – he had worked all over the world and had witnessed things like the fall of Saigon, Tehran during the hostage crisis, things like that. I absentmindedly noticed during dinner that the train had stopped somewhere in western Belgium or eastern France; somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. But then it started again and all was fine.
Dinner lasted through dessert, then coffee, then a brandy, and we were swapping stories and having a fine old time, until the dining car people started ahem-ing rather loudly, so we bid our adieus and we headed back to our compartment.
We didn’t make it all the way. I looked through the little window in the door between the last seating coach and the first sleeper, and saw…tracks, receding into the dusk. Evidently the stop during dinner had been when they’d disconnected the sleeping cars and attached them to a different train, which was now headed south to the Cote d’Azur, while we were standing in the remains of the train that was now barreling toward Paris. Oops.
When I say we left everything in the sleeping compartment, I mean everything – plane tickets, bags, passports, coats, cameras, toothbrushes, everything. My wife, bless her, had taken her handbag to dinner, in it her wallet, in that her credit and cash cards and drivers license, and maybe 100 Belgian Francs and a couple of Guilder. No FF.
We went a-searching for a conductor or anyone in a uniform, and found nobody, except our Canadian dinner companion. We explained what had happened, and he offered to help as best he could, which none of us knew how to define.
We ended up back in the dining car, where the only person present was the headwaiter, counting and sorting the various banknotes left for tabs and tips. By this point my and my wife’s French had well and truly given out (“Please, how do you say imbecile?”) but our Canadian friend came to the rescue, explained our plight, and the waiter grudgingly agreed to call the conductor, who he knew was up in the locomotive schmoozing with the drivers (at least I hope that was all.)
The conductor arrives, our friend explains, and we receive a world-class series of Gallic shrugs. Can he see our tickets? Geez, no, they’re on the OTHER TRAIN.
Well, you’ll have to wait until we get to Paris, which is now an hour or so away, and maybe someone there can sort you out. I ask (through our new interpreter) what happens if the sleeper train arrives at its terminus (Ventimiglia, just over the Italian border) and nobody’s in our compartment. Well, he said, your stuff is piled on the station platform. Okey-dokey.
We arrive at the station in Paris (Gare de l’Est I think) and it’s late and everything’s shut. The conductor points the 3 of us toward the station manager’s office, shrugs, and vanishes. We march up to the office and our friend talks our way into the office, where we meet the SNCF station manager, a chain-smoking woman in a pixy cut and a black-on-black outfit. Our friend tells our story to her, and (I kid you not) she looks at us, grimaces, and says, “Oo la la..” In my many days and nights in France I have never had this said to me before or since.
The three of us stand there, two of us sheepish, while she goes through a couple more Gauloises. She says something to our Canadian savior, and he tells us he’s been dismissed. He’s now a couple of hours overdue for his hotel (early meeting the next day) so we thank him for the hundredth time and he goes.
The station manager asks us (French, but I’m managing, sort of) if we have any French money. No. Do we have an ATM card? Yes. Okay, you will need around 500F (around $80 at that time), get it from the ATM in the main concourse. Why? You’ll see.
She picks up the phone and barks words, and presently a smallish Algerian or Tunisian man appears. She writes a note on a slip of paper, shows him, and hands it to me. It says “Valentin.” More barking at the guy, then okay, she says, go with him, via the ATM. Bon chance (Gringos.)
I use my wife’s cash card at the ATM, trying with partial success to keep the guy from seeing the PIN. He leads us out into the night (pretty chilly and us with no coats) to his – aha – taxi.
We then roar through the night, up on to the Peripherique, making like a Mirage, out of town to the south.
Half an hour later he pulls off the Autoroute and onto a side road, then another turn and we are on a dirt road, deep in the dark boondocks. My wife is contemplating swallowing her wedding ring at this point. We bump along for a couple of minutes until we come to a lone house with a light on. Our driver goes to the door and knocks on it; a man in an undershirt appears (PO’d possibly?) and indicates no, you idiot, not here. More bumping and we come to another identical building. Another knock, this time the guy’s in a shirt. Yes, this is it. Get out, go in. It is about 2 AM.
We gladly fork over the 300F cab fare and add another 100F for not killing us. Off the cab goes, and upstairs we go with the new guy. We emerge into… the war room. On all four walls are enormous computer screens and diagrams of the French railway system for the Paris region, with crawling, blinking lights, numbers on readouts, colored shapes on black. The room is occupied with four or five people sitting at consoles. One console starts making a beeping noise and the attendant pushes a button and the beeping stops. All look up at the big board, where no doubt tragedy has just been averted.
We are told to sit over there and be quiet (except for our teeth chattering, which we could not control) and we do so for half an hour. Then one of the men gets up and motions for us to follow him outside. He grabs an old-fashioned railway lantern, and proceeds to lead us across dozens of sets of railway tracks, waving the lantern as he goes, no doubt so the TGV traveling at 300 kph will have time to stop.
Finally we arrive at a cement pad, where we wait for about two minutes. A train pulls up, slides forward until we are opposite a door in one of the coaches, stops. Our sleeping car conductor looks down on us and says, “Oh there you are.”
A few hours later we raise the curtain and look out on the Mediterranean in the morning sun’s glare, and we start to process how lucky we were to have been befriended, and saved, by two or three strangers. A night to remember, full of kind people.
We are told to sit over there and be quiet (except for our teeth chattering, which we could not control) and we do so for half an hour. Then one of the men gets up and motions for us to follow him outside. He grabs an old-fashioned railway lantern, and proceeds to lead us across dozens of sets of railway tracks, waving the lantern as he goes, no doubt so the TGV traveling at 300 kph will have time to stop.
Finally we arrive at a cement pad, where we wait for about two minutes. A train pulls up, slides forward until we are opposite a door in one of the coaches, stops. Our sleeping car conductor looks down on us and says, “Oh there you are.”
A few hours later we raise the curtain and look out on the Mediterranean in the morning sun’s glare, and we start to process how lucky we were to have been befriended, and saved, by two or three strangers. A night to remember, full of kind people.
Jan 24, 2018, 2:42 pm
#37
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Here are a couple of North American trips I liked:
July 2014 2014...Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic...Seward to Anchorage (U.S.) ... Read Here
ALL ABOARD: A Photographic Rail Adventure Through The American West ... Read Here
Oh - and here's one more from South Africa - sort of the poor man's Blue Train... Read Here
Oh what the heck - one more: The Cumbres & Toltec narrow gauge along the Colorado/New Mexico Border... Read Here
If you want more, just click on the red trailer directly below...
July 2014 2014...Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic...Seward to Anchorage (U.S.) ... Read Here
ALL ABOARD: A Photographic Rail Adventure Through The American West ... Read Here
Oh - and here's one more from South Africa - sort of the poor man's Blue Train... Read Here
Oh what the heck - one more: The Cumbres & Toltec narrow gauge along the Colorado/New Mexico Border... Read Here
If you want more, just click on the red trailer directly below...
Last edited by Seat 2A; Jan 24, 2018 at 2:52 pm
Jan 25, 2018, 3:46 pm
#38
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My favorite train experiences were probably in the month I spent riding 2nd class all over Europe as a college student on an Interrail pass. The people you meet in 2nd class are great - I still keep in touch with a few from that month 25 years ago. People from all over the world...
I've ridden the Maglev in Shanghai and a high-speed train from Shanghai up to Beijing. But hanging out with tons of students on overnight trains in Europe was more memorable...
Jan 25, 2018, 4:52 pm
#39
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I suspect what the OP meant was that due to the extremely expensive cost of riding these trains (Trans-Siberian excepted unless we're talking the Golden Eagle) most ordinary travelers would be put off by the cost.
Jan 25, 2018, 8:41 pm
#40
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Jan 25, 2018, 9:00 pm
#41
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Jan 26, 2018, 7:12 am
#42
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But of course I agree with you on all the tourist trains mentioned above. Like noone is going to take the train across the Rockies in Canada just to get places.
Jan 26, 2018, 7:54 am
#43
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While not all "ordinary travelers" are rail aficionados, there are certainly a lot who are. I kind of assumed the Trans-Siberian would be higher than $400 or $700, but not $20k or anything. It's more a matter of carving out the time in one's schedule than anything. (Which is why my chance to do it is probably 15 years from now.)
Jan 26, 2018, 8:18 am
#44
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This trip was memorable for all the wrong reasons. My son was part of a karate team traveling from Los Angeles to a National Championship in New Mexico. There were 20 something kids, most of them pre-teens, their parents, siblings, coaches, and a few adult competitors. It was nearly impossible to get any rest with all of those kids, but they had a great time. On the way home, now with all the kids and lots of trophies, there was a derailment on the track west of Flagstaff. At Flagstaff they had to take us off the trains and put us on buses for the remainder of the trip. There were not enough buses so in some cases it was three to a seat, and not all of the buses had working bathrooms. The next year, while the rest of the team took the train, we flew.
Jan 26, 2018, 9:52 am
#45
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Don't really travel by rail much other than the occasional subway/Metro North trip, but my most "memorable" one was probably taking Amtrak from Washington DC up to New Haven, CT. We were on a school trip and had to delay going back by a day due to a large snowstorm back home. Weather in Washington DC was much better than back home, even sunny. Next day we take the train, and the further North we went, the more and more snow was on the ground until we got back and saw 2 feet of snow.