CELEBRATED LIVES
Railtour organiser Marina Linke
If ever there was a person for whom being told ‘no’ was all the more reason to make something extraordinary happen, it was Marina Linke.
The Golden Eagle Luxury Trains managing director, who died suddenly in January aged just 53, was not only an engaging and powerful personality, but integral to some of the most spectacular steam trips ever staged.
Born in Rostov-on-Don in what at the time was the Soviet Union in 1967, Marina joined Russian Railways, where she first came into contact with Golden Eagle’s progenitor GW Travel in 1992. She made the shift to work for the British company in 1994 but still based in Rostov – swapping her ten dollars a month railway salary for a sum ten times that… and later realising she should have asked for more! After moving to England in 1995 (with a larger salary increase) she worked her way up through the Altrincham-based tour operator, and became MD in 2020.
In doing so, she became a key organiser of long-distance steam journeys through Russia that included traversing the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1996, and a 42-day MoscowVladivostok epic in 2000 that ran via the ‘Trans-Sib’ and the new Baikal-Amur Main Line (BAM). Marina’s contact with Steam Railway came not only through tours in the former USSR, but a series of joint trips from 2002 onwards to the ‘world’s last great steam paradise’: China. Until the end of steam on the famous JiTong Railway in 2005, the ‘Jingpeng-China Orient Express’ became a regular feature – taking in not only ‘QJ’ 2-10-2 haulage of our private train over the Jingpeng Pass, but seeking out other hotspots too. A final joint China tour followed in 2009.
Known among colleagues and travellers alike as a formidable organiser, Marina was able to extricate herself from a fair number of scrapes over the years – generally followed by an inevitable climbdown from a difficult senior railwayman or obstinate official. One of those events included being unexpectedly detained on the Russian/Finnish border… followed by night-time release from an overcrowded women’s jail.
Regular passenger Ray Mason – who travelled with Marina on multiple occasions, from the Caucasus to Chechnya – said international steam enthusiasts will be “forever indebted” to her, and that journeying in her company was “unforgettable”.
However, working together with GWT/Golden Eagle’s president
Tim Littler, Marina was able to establish her company as a premier luxury train promoter far beyond enthusiast circles; her drive was crucial in the creation of a new $25m high-specification touring train with en suite accommodation, restaurant, kitchen and bar cars and even five 120sq. ft ‘Imperial Suites’; the ‘Golden Eagle’ primarily serves the company’s core route, the Trans-Siberian.
At the time of Marina’s death, Tim said she had been “brimming with new ideas for growing the company and continually improving the on-board and offboard experiences. She will be sadly missed by everyone in the company, our suppliers and the many guests who travelled with her.”
For steam enthusiasts, her legacy will be wider still: Golden Eagle’s president said it had been Marina who “galvanised” Russia’s steam movement, leading to an edict from the head of the country’s railway that locomotives must be preserved. Today, around 120 engines are operational.
One of the working locomotives in the Russian Railways fleet, ‘P36’ 4-8-4 No. 0032, was itself owned by GWT/ Golden Eagle for two decades before being donated to Russia’s railway museum in 2019. The 1954-built engine is expected to become a lasting memorial to Marina – by being named after her during yet another planned mammoth steam trip which itself should become something to remember her by: Golden Eagle has a westbound ‘Tran-Sib’ – steam-hauled all the way – planned for 2022.
Nigel Harris, editor of SR at the time of an early trip in 1993, remembers “issues by the hour to resolve” and “watching in awe as majestic Marina sallied forth, either wreathed in smiles or with eyes ablaze, as she set about ironing out whatever ‘bump in the road’ was in the tour’s path. From armed soldiers to bad-tempered policemen and jobsworth railway officials, she left them all in her wake, either as a result of charm or thunderbolts! She truly was a force of nature.”
Marina Linke died aged 53 on January 4. She leaves a son, Philipp.