If you thought your commute was hellish...
Chris Tarrant tries trains that are sure to make you sick, are six days late and cost thousands of lives
Ilike trains, I do – but the problem with filming a TV series called Extreme Railway Journeys is that whenever you find yourself temporarily travelling in comfort, you soon have to change and get on the kind of train many Westerners wouldn’t dream of clambering aboard. In the course of making the show, I travelled more than one complete circuit of the globe on the oldest, slowest and most uncomfortable trains on the planet. So it’s lucky I enjoy the extreme.
However, it’s not the trains themselves I’m interested in but the stories behind the railways. Today we take trains for granted but the tales of how the railways were built is fascinating – and often horrific. For some remote communities, trains are the only way in which they can stay in touch with other humans.
In Bolivia, for example, there’s a train that goes right up over the Andes, to heights of about 15,000ft. It’s the most extraordinary rail journey I’ve ever been on. You can’t help wondering: my God, how did they build a railway right up there?
We struggled with altitude sickness while on board but, for locals, this service is a lifeline. They appear out of nowhere alongside the track, stick their hand out and wait for the train to stop. We saw lots of traditionally dressed Bolivian women with weather-beaten faces wearing big black hats and wonderful colourful clothes, carrying huge bags. These sacks were intriguing. They were nothing more than folded-up sheets but they held everything from potatoes and eggs to shoes. We even saw one woman with a baby tucked inside. These locals might go about 10km before getting off – and then suddenly disappear into nowhere. It really makes you think that, without that train, these people would struggle to exist.
It was a similar story in the Congo. The distances between towns are massive in this part of Africa, and it’s thick, thick jungle at every turn.
Without the railway, villagers couldn’t communicate with anybody else apart from their immediate family. That said, the train is hardly to be relied upon. It was six days late when we tried to take it. There was no station office or timetable, just a chalk marking simply stating: ‘Not today.’
Furthermore, when it did eventually arrive nearly a week later, it proceeded to break down in a tunnel in the middle of the night due to an electrical fault – it was terrifying. You do not want to break down in the middle of the night in a tunnel in the Congo, trust me.
The Congo-Ocean Railway has always been plagued with difficulty, never more so than during the time of its construction under French colonial administration in the 1920s. More than a quarter of the 127,000 men who were conscripted from all over equatorial Africa to work on the line died from malaria, sleeping sickness, dysentery or sheer exhaustion.
Further tragedy ensued during the building of the infamous Bamba Tunnel in the Mayombe jungle, also in west Africa. When the workforce began digging, they were turning over earth that had not been touched for hundreds of years and which – unbeknownst to the men – was emitting great jets of carbon monoxide.
Worker after worker collapsed owing to the poisonous gas but – because it was colourless and odourless – nobody understood what was happening, with many believing it to be voodoo. About 80% of the men died on the spot.
The Death Railway from Thailand to Burma has an equally terrible history, as its name suggests. In 1942, during the Second World War, prisoners of war and slave labourers were used by the Japanese to build this line – intended to transport supplies to troops in Burma – in incredibly unpleasant conditions. Thousands died. It’s estimated that for every sleeper laid, a man lost his life.
While exploring the railway, we filmed on the River Kwai Bridge – made famous by the 1957 film Bridge On The River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness. But today the place is like a funfair with blaring pop music. They even sell ‘I crossed over the River Kwai’ T-shirts – it’s truly awful.
Zimbabwe, too, was eye-opening. I was apprehensive about going there and my concerns were not unfounded. At the Botswana border, we’d been driving in our 4x4 for only 6km or so when we came to a roadblock and these very large policemen approached, waving their AK47s. In the middle of the road there was a table piled high with US dollars (the Zimbabwean dollar has completely collapsed) and they were telling us ‘Your lights are not working’ – of course they weren’t on, as it was 2pm and there was bright sunshine. But then they spotted our camera and were instantly suspicious. ‘What is this? What are you filming? What is this recorder?’ they asked before holding their hands out for money. I’ve never had that before. We went on to encounter six more roadblocks between the border and Bulawayo, with ‘policemen’ asking for money each time. You’re not going to argue. You could end up in prison if you crossed the wrong people.
My favourite place we visited on the show has to be Buenos Aires – one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. I liked it so much that I’ve been back already with the missus and we loved it. – As told to Harriet Mallinson Chris Tarrant’s Extreme Railway Journeys, John Blake, €28