Those of you in the know will be aware that Belgrade has a bit of a railway station identity crisis at the moment. The original station now having closed, the new station called ‘Central’ is open, but barely finished it is not yet capable of dealing with all the services it is supposed to at the moment. So confusingly, the single daily summer service from Belgrade to Sofia currently departs from a tiny station in a leafy suburb of the city called Topcider. My train from Zagreb yesterday arrived in the Central station though.. Both have ticket offices, neither have […]
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There are twenty-five platforms at Munchen Hbf, but tonight it would seem that all the international night trains are going to depart from platform 12. On consultation with a station manager it turns out that my train is a polymorph. Four trains begin as one and take on their own route during the night. One huge composition of differing rail carriages sits at platform 12 with staff wearing all sorts of uniforms. It feels a little like arriving at a new boarding school and trying to find your housemaster and dormitory. In search of carriage 271 I pass carriages going […]
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After some time sat at my desk writing my next book and wondering where on earth to travel to next, I have finally made a decision and started booking tickets. Buying a ticket is an important step for me, as it gives me commitment and focus on my new challenge. It gives me mental strength and resolve. I’m going to try and get to Baku (Azerbaijan) by rail from London. I’m filled with that usual pre trip apprehension and excitment. My bags are already packed, and all I’m waiting for is a brand new passport (the old jumbo one is […]
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With my latest book finally off my desk and in the hands of my publisher, I have been getting itchy feet here at HQ. The trouble is that I come across so many great ideas for rail routes and places to visit by train. Almost too many. I note them down in a special little book, but my downfall is that don’t take immediate action on actually implementing them. Throughout my life I have always been a little over planned and (in my own opinion), not spontaneous enough. I spent too long in a business where everything was planned and […]
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You might well have been wondering what I have been up to since I returned from my United States coast to coast adventure late last year. The answer is simply that I have been working flat out on my new book. A Bridge Even Further is the second book in my Trans-Siberian trilogy, and I’m pleased to be able to say that it was finally published this week. Your feedback on my first book has been really helpful in deciding how to approach writing A Bridge Even Further. I wanted to keep all the detail of my experiences of the individual trains, […]
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Travelling across the U.S. by train recently has revealed a brand new language to me; I have discovered the dialect of the American railway. I now speak fluent “Amtrak”, and you can too. The train language of the rest of the world has had limited chance to interbreed with the U.S, leaving America with a unique set of rail words. Most make some sense to English speakers, but a variety of carriage (sorry, car) types and multiple names for the same thing can at times become confusing. In addition, the first time traveller may be surprised by the way the […]
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After a rather weird stay on board the Queen Mary, I’m back on the rails today. I never thought I would take to life in L.A, but I was pleasantly surprised by Long Beach nightlife. The Queen Mary is such an iconic ship, but now as a business it is primarily a glorified theme park and the values of Cunard are long gone. I’m with some other British rail travellers and amazingly one of them was actually a passenger on the Queen Mary. The ship didn’t even offer him a complimentary drink to welcome him back. I find that rather […]
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There is much speculation about how late the train will be into Flagstaff this evening. Dan, the Brakeman on my earlier Grand Canyon train, has advised me to buy a bottle of wine and decant it into a water bottle so I can have a drink on the station platform. Four hours delay is quite normal on this service. Amtrak don’t own the track, so freight takes priority. “The Chief” is coming from Chicago, so it will have had plenty of opportunity to pick up a big delay. I return to the station after a quick dinner to discover that […]
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The day didn’t start too well. My bus driver actually got lost trying to find Williams Depot, the home of the Grand Canyon Railway. Mild panic began to creep into my thoughts, but with just ten minutes to spare we arrived at the station and I boarded carriage “E” on the 09.30 train, bound for the south rim of the Grand Canyon. On some days they run a steam train, but today we are hauled by a nicely restored class EMD F40 locomotive with matching silver vintage carriages. My seat is comfy enough in a slightly too tightly packed coach […]
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I’m slightly “off piste” in a railway sense. To reach Silverton I have had to leave the train at Denver (the train to Grand Junction was cancelled owing to work on the line) and take a bus to Silverton. It would have been too easy to push on west towards the coast, but this part of my journey needs further exploration – I’m seriously enjoying being in Colorado. My journey today is a totally a tourist one, but in the past it was a vital part of the incredible story of the gold and silver rushes. The Durango & Silverton […]
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