Night Trains: The Rise And Fall Of The Sleeper
Andrew Martin Profile Books €17.20 ★★★★★
There are few things quite so alluring as a sleeping compartment on a night train, and – let’s be honest – few things quite so disappointing. The night train always promises so much: not just the magical sensation of going to sleep in one place and waking up somewhere completely different, but also a dreamworld of snugness, luxury, privacy and steamy romance.
But as the fantasies mount up, so too do future disappointments. At 3.30am, you wake up on your hard, cramped little bed and, as the minutes turn into hours, you are made ever more wideawake by the cacophony of clanking, the stuffiness, the sound of strangers hawking in the corridors, the threat of officials, thieves or serial killers bursting in, and so on, and so forth.
Yet somehow, the romantic fantasy of the night train persists, and when it comes to planning our next holiday, I generally find myself saying: ‘Hey! Let’s not fly, let’s take the night train!’ And so the nightmare begins again.
Andrew Martin has cornered the train market. The last book of his that I read was all about the London Underground, and wonderfully funny and informative it was, too. He has also written a series of crime novels set on trains – Death On A Branch Line, The Last Train To Scarborough, The Necropolis Railway, etc, etc. So I picked up Night Trains knowing I would be entertained, but also in the hope his years of experience would teach me how to sleep on a sleeper.
Martin’s love of the night train has its roots in his teens. His father worked for British Rail. After his mother died, he travelled by rail for three summers ‘to the Continent’, as it was then known, with his father and sister. ‘When the train came in, I concentrated on looking nonchalant as we headed for first class,’ he recalls. After each holiday, he liked to boast to his friends of his adventures: ‘While we were having our meal in the dining car, the guard came along and made up the couchettes!’
He remembers waking up at 3am and raising the blind ‘to see a perfect encapsulation of Switzerland: crescent moon, a handful of stars and a snow-capped mountain with a log chalet halfway up it’.
It is for these moments that we diehard fans of the night train still keep booking our outrageously expensive tickets. Long gone are the days when it was the cheaper option. Budget airlines and budget hotels have put paid to that. Throughout his book, Martin keeps totting up the cost of pursuing his childhood dreams. For instance, Paris to Venice by night train is €200 one-way, which is more than twice what you’d pay for a return flight.
Is it worth it? As Martin points out, no one ever remembers an air journey. Flying is vacuum-packed, insulating human beings from real life. Every airport is the same as the last. The night train, on the other hand, has a very rich history, and has inspired countless books, films and poems.
This is, by and large, a travel book, with Martin taking six long journeys on night trains all over Europe. But he peppers this framework with tales of days gone by, generally contrasting the grandeur of the old night trains with the stripped-back parsimony of today’s. Despite all this, and any number of setbacks along the way, Martin manages to retain an enthusiasm for the night train – although he does spend most of his time dreading the arrival of a stranger to share his compartment and the rest of the time being terrified of missing connections.
Happily for us, the book swiftly becomes what Martin calls a ‘comedy of embarrassments’. Ticket sellers take a delight in informing him, and misinforming him, of cancelled trains. A thief pilfers his wallet. He never seems to get a good night’s sleep.
Andrew Martin is the best sort of travel-writer: inquisitive, knowledgeable, lively, congenial. He is also very funny, while never letting the humour drive reality, rather than vice versa.
Witty as it is, his book is also an elegy. Even while he was writing it, death sentences were being handed out to the few remaining night trains in Europe. ‘This book has been written as a lament,’ he writes. ‘But if it turns out that my tone is misconceived, and the European night trains will not disappear into permanent darkness, I will be only too glad.’
‘Gone are the days when the night train was the cheaper option. Budget airlines put paid to that’