September 7th, 2007
Take the ‘A’ train - travel by train - A Guide to Pleasure
I WAS BORN near the end of the Golden Age of Trains. As a child in Chicago between the wars I had little use for the Twentieth Century Limited–though my father took it often, on business trips to and from New York. But I did travel with my mother to various distant destinations-as far as Miami and Los Angeles–and I always enjoyed those trips. The napery in the dining cars was heavy and stiff; the silverware was thick and ornate. The car porter would come by during the evening and convert our compartment into a bedroom, with a good-sized bed for my mother and an “upper berth” for me. And then we would rocket through the night, swaying with the train carriage, and soon fall sound asleep.
All that is long since gone, in the United States. The advent of commercial aviation, beginning just before the Second World War and expanding explosively around 1950, completely transformed our travel habits. Yet, undeniably, we have lost something.
I remember President Reagan telling me once, when he was still governor, how much he used to enjoy taking the train from Los Angeles to Chicago and back in his acting days. The train would leave about 6 P.M., and there was time for a drink and a good dinner before turning in. The next morning it would be high in the Rockies. After a quiet day, and another pleasant evening and night, it would pull into Chicago. Plane travel was okay, Mr. Reagan thought, but boring. (Of course, Air Force One may later have changed his mind.)
Elsewhere–in areas of the world where major destinations are closer together-passenger trains not only survive but are the preferred mode of transportation. The great trans-European expresses will take you in thoroughly civilized comfort all over the Continent, crossing border after border with minimum inconvenience. And there are, in addition, still a few notable trains on the major routes within countries–like the TGVs of France, which now hold the Continental speed record for their runs between Paris and Lyon.
In Japan, similarly, the three hundred miles between Tokyo and Osaka are perfectly suited for a fast train. The Kodama (”Swallow”) expresses that leave Tokyo’s Central Station every hour cover the distance in a cool three hours. The Japanese expresses, however, make no great attempt at luxury. Your seat is reserved; there is a dining car; and a girl will come through the train with hot tea and perhaps a few snacks. But there’s not really much point in putting on a lot of dog for a three-hour trip. As for the speed (which necessarily gets up to around 110 m.p.h.), the truth is that you’ll hardly notice it.
For the rest, luxury train travel these days is largely confined to specialty acts, like the modern version of the old Simplon Orient Express that carries nostalgiacs from Paris to Venice and back. I have never ridden one of these, but I’m only seventy and there’s still time ! Another exotic possibility was called to my attention recently by one of those university alumni associations that have developed a profitable sideline toting groups of alumni to various intriguing corners of the globe. I have never had the slightest interest in riding the Trans-Siberian Express; by all accounts it makes the troop train that carried me across India in 1944 seem positively sybaritic. But this particular brochure promises a rather different sort of experience. The rolling stock, apparently assembled for the occasion, is the last word in luxury–wood paneling, crystal goblets in the dining car: the whole bit. The passengers will pick it up this summer somewhere in the Far East– Peking, I think–and ride it to Moscow in a week or a bit more. As I recall, there will even be an opportunity to get out and look around Novosibirsk or wherever. Still… It would be okay, I guess, if you like tundra.
More to my taste is the Blue Train–the luxury special that travels from Pretoria to Cape Town and back. Lord knows whether it will survive what South Africa appears to be heading for, but at last report it was still making the round trip twice a week at a dignified average of about 40 m.p.h. If you’re in a hurry, you can cover the distance on a South African Airways 727 in two hours. But if you have the time, take the train.
The rolling stock is specially designed; there is a molecular layer of gold on each window to shield passengers from the African sun, and there are electrically controlled Venetian blinds as well. Several music channels are available. Even the smallest compartment has a private shower, and many of the rooms for two actually boast a bathroom with tub. You are assigned to a table in the dining car, which will be yours for all three meals–lunch, dinner, and breakfast. There will be fresh flowers on the table, and luscious South African wines with your food. Between meals, the car attendant (one in each car) is in telephonic communication with the kitchen and club car.
You can, by the way, set your watch by the Blue Train’s progress. I boarded it in Johannesburg, just south of Pretoria, and it glided out of the station on the dot of noon. Twenty-four hours later to the minute, it rolled into Cape Town and stopped. In between, on the first afternoon, we were six thousand feet up on the tawny highveld. When I awoke the next morning we were making our way through the lovely Hex River valley of Cape Province, green with vineyards and purple with jacarandas in South Africa’s September spring.