The indignity of modern train travel
The much-maligned talking toilets on Virgin Trains do, it has to be said, express the underlying psyche, just as their scent drifts through carriages like a ghost for whom malfunctioning pneumatic doors are no match. On long journeys, we are all splashing in the sewers of human behaviour, so why not converse with an anthropomorphic lavatory?
The voiceover has changed. Mildly amusing once and chafing ever after, it was once a list of things not to throw down the pan – goldfish, your ex’s something or other. Now it’s about knowing what you sign up for when you apply to be a toilet, which inevitably reminds passengers of the grim inevitability of what you sign up for when paying exorbitant rates for a cityto-city rail fare across the UK. Public toilets are even worse, says the privatised toilet, letting their political sympathies hang out.
When did it become acceptable to play videos aloud in public spaces? Don’t say the youth have no manners – it’s usually a mature chuckle at a Facebook grandwean’s personal life documented for all eternity, preserved like the souls of Silicone Valley executives as they harvest toddler’s data. Don’t even start with quiet carriages. It’s often less annoying to sit anywhere else, where at least you know to expect braying businessmen taking performative calls about financial forecasts and parents narrating with the projection of Brian Blessed while their children sit quietly. Look everyone, there’s a horse! And how peaceful it must be in that wide open field instead of in carriage C with us. I bet even a horse uses its indoor voice in the stables.
But it’s easy to become a little misanthopic when shelling out for a barely civilised experience that assaults all senses, your most private ablutions chummed along by a depressed clown. Wifi is patchy; the coffee is worse. Who doesn’t love, though, the idea of a long train trip, puffing happily through the countryside? Settling in, unwrapping sandwiches, and opening a book is always the best bit, other than appreciating anew how fresh air can be when stumbling on to the platform at the other end. The mystery of train travel still exists, albeit as cancellations and delays, rather than the strangers one might meet. Or so I tell myself, fantasising about the way it could be in an effort to drown out the mundane reality of double-booked seat reservations. At least it’s better than flying.