Night Trains by Andrew Martin is a book I’ve ploughed through, determined to see it out. It’s about six journeys on the last of Europe’s sleeper trains, a dying breed due to low profits and operational difficulties of international agreements. It’s got a pretty cover. Train journeys are interesting. So why do I use the words “ploughed through” and “determined to see it out”?
Because it’s tedious. You all know what a stereotype of a trainspotter looks and sounds like and you can hear those stereotypical nasal tones coming through with every word in this book. I can forgive that. Enthusiasm can be catching. But I’m not feeling the enthusiasm. For all the droning on about the history of the paint colour and the historical location of where the ticket office used to be and the unexpected tension of “will someone board at Dijon and join me in my compartment?”, there’s not actually a lot of enthusiasm.
Considering you can smell the trainspotter coming off Martin even through the pages of a stodgy book, I don’t really get the impression he wants to do any of these journeys. There’s no excitement. It almost feels like a man who’s been sent by his editor on a few research trips, a man who’d rather be at home reading with a ham sandwich close at hand. Where’s the sense of movement? The sense of adventure? The sense of arriving in an interesting place. Nice, Venice, Istanbul – they’re all transformed into Slough by a man who writes about trains.
As well as the six journeys, there’s an introductory chapter. It’s the most tedious of the lot, packed full of historical details, the entire backstory of the Wagons-Lits company, the difference between a couchette coach and a sleeper coach, three childhood holidays with the British Railwaymen’s Touring Club (and all the secret BRTC-speak – “the main ‘up’ platform”, arriving at “The Cross” etc), the shades of blue and brown paint. This chapter’s for the specialists, really. Not for people like me who are looking for a railway adventure. Worst of all, it’s longer than two of the actual adventure chapters. It takes up 29 pages. The Sud Express, Paris to Lisbon, is only 21 pages. There’s am editor somewhere who should have cut out more than half of that introduction, told him not to be so boring.
Because that’s the problem. This is boring. I know – and he knows – that the sleeper trains no longer have the glamour or excitement of the golden age of rail travel a la Agatha Christie but if I’d done those six journeys, I’d have written a book about them with a bit more soul. I want to feel that the train from Paris to Venice is more special than the 06:54 from Staines to Waterloo. I want to feel like the four or five trains it takes to get to Istanbul from Paris is an adventure rather than a duty. If you must buy a can of lager and a ham sandwich, I want the mundaneness of the picnic to be played to its full effect against the luxury of the Orient Express’s hand-cooked 1st class menu.
What I get is six variations on the following. “I found my compartment. There was a terrible person sitting on the other bed. To escape them, I went to the restaurant coach and had the cheapest wine available and the only meal they were offering at that time of night. I ate it in five minutes and had to return to my compartment because there was nothing else to do. In the morning we arrived and I went to my hotel”. Come on! You’re writing a love letter to the great European sleeper trains! You can do better than that! I can do better than that!
I’ve looked for reviews of this book. I’ve looked for other people like me, who’ve found that a potentially great book is dry and dull and instead I’ve found endless praise. ” A delightful mix of travel writing and cultural history that is not just for train buffs”. “Andrew Martin is an engaging guide”. “You do not have to be a trainspotter to enjoy this book”.
You do. Only a trainspotter can enjoy the pages upon pages of rail minutiae.
That said, did I put the book down halfway through to figure out an actual itinerary of overnight trains available today that could convey me from London to Istanbul? Of course I did. Did I go off to investigate prices and times of the Nordland railway? Yes. Did it inspire me to immediately want to do long-distance trans-European rail adventures? I mean, especially in the age of plague where planes just feel like too much of a risk, yes. You bet I want my Interrailing time (only an actual Interrail pass doesn’t seem the most cost-effective or the most efficient way to do it).
So it did its job. It probably didn’t save the dying night services – a fairly niche travelogue can’t beat the fact that sleepers are generally loss-makers, are more expensive and slower than flying and often require international diplomatic agreements. But instead of going “Ugh, I’m glad I’ve finished that!”, I immediately started dreaming of train journeys. And I started mentally writing my own (much shorter) introduction to my re-imagining of this book.
A few posts on long-distance train journeys I’ve done, in case you’re still interested in rail travel:
The Caledonian Sleeper (London – Edinburgh)
The Great Train Adventure (Helsinki – Rovaniemi)
An unplanned day in Transylvania (Bucharest – Brasov)
Trans-Siberian Railway 101 (Ekaterinburg – Perm)