The man with a long gray beard was wearing a white tank top and blue running shorts. Shorts short enough that, as he sat stiff and poised so that his back was concave, the silk material couldn’t make it over his exposed backside and his cheeks were sticking firmly to the plastic bench. Besides his confident workout gear he wore a large set of headphones that were plugged into his phone, held with a straight arm at eye level, and he was so fixated on the device that he didn’t appear to be breathing.
He was sitting uncomfortably close to Andrew on an otherwise empty bench at Victoria Station and gave the overall impression of an Indian yogi that was probably a YouTube star I should know. He’d arrived while I’d been wandering around the shops before boarding and Andrew was intent enough on catching up with work on his laptop that I don’t think he’d noticed his new friend.
Train travel is the greatest form of transportation and if given the chance I’ll choose it over any other way of getting from point A to point B. It will never work in the United States, our distances and populations don’t allow it to fit our needs, but in Great Britain it’s the tops. We traveled from London to Dover and then along the coast to Eastbourne, from Lewes to Brighton, and eventually back to London from Winchester.
When you travel by train you get treated as an adult. First, the assumption is made, apparently, that any looming terrorist threats will only be made at airports and on airplanes. Security at train stations is minimal, giving back all the freedom and comfort we’ve lost with air travel. People moan about how no one dresses up for flying anymore? It’s a waste of time since you have to get undressed and redressed going through security; walking around in your socks; removing your belt in front of total strangers; standing in poses like you’ve just been arrested. Yea, we’ve lost the elegance.
But on trains! You walk into the station and more likely than not there will be no security at all, or no more than a quick luggage scan as you enter. You’re free to take anything in, no one cares if you’ve brought a bottle of water, no one hassles you, and no one expects that you’re there for sinister reasons.
Which initially throws off your timing a bit–I’m used to having to arrive 2-3 hours ahead of time for a flight so we got to Victoria an hour before the train departure, worrying that maybe we were pushing it too close, despite what we’d read online. When you take that into account, trains are about the fastest way to travel–especially when you’re talking about high speed trains that can go 300km/h. No traffic, no stoplights, no waiting for luggage to load. It’s fast.
It took all of three minutes to get to the waiting area once we’d arrived, plenty of time to spare and nothing to do but observe the locals, like our intent work-out guru next door. Or the pigeons flocking around our feet looking for handouts. I noticed one with two mangled, twisted feet bent back like little knotty nubs. He rocked from side to side, trying to keep up with the others and my mothering instincts went off the charts.
“Oh my goodness he’s got twisted feet! Andrew look at that!”
Andrew gave me some sign of acknowledgement without too much commitment to the conversation and I shooed the other birds away to offer a french fry to the pathetic little guy at my feet.
We had plenty of time to wait–time enough to indulge in a Krispy Kreme and hot chocolate at the vintage mirrored Airstream trailer-turned-donut-shop. In fact you don’t have to come more than 5 minutes early, walking right on and then speeding off in comfort and style and with donuts. No one checks your ticket to make sure you’re getting on the right train. No one announces the trains coming and going, they expect that if you’re grown up enough to have the money and the ability to purchase a ticket then you ought to be grown up enough to find your way onto the right train at the right time and without getting hurt. It’s liberating.
You can take your luggage right on with you, no more worries about sneaking on an oversized bag or cursing the guy ahead of you who’s done just that and is now whacking heads as he waddles down the aisle looking for a place to stuff it. There’s plenty of room to store whatever you bring, no one’s cutting in line to get on first and snatch available luggage space because they can’t bring themselves to check a bag. Nothing gets lost in transit. People are bringing on bicycles for goodness sake!
There are multiple places to get on so a hundred people aren’t lining up in front of the one available entry point. Boarding is quick, almost as quick as disembarkation. It is efficient and it is painless.
The worst seat on a London train is better than any seat on an economy flight–and would surpass first class a run if you took meals out of the equation. Besides the beautiful views going by, each seat gives you so much leg room you can’t touch the seat ahead of you. Need to get up to use the restroom? You can do it without touching anyone (and the bathrooms themselves are luxuriously large, they’re actually bathroom-sized, with automatic doors, and not closet-sized with the accordion fold door that squeezes you back onto the toilet just to get out).
Trains glide along with a lovely low rocking motion that makes you feel comfortable and relaxed. Never do you hear a voice over the intercom demanding you return to your seats and buckle up because of turbulence. Go about your business folks, we’ll get you there in comfort. And on time.
Punctuality! Oh my goodness, it’s down to the minute. If your train is scheduled to arrive at 18:37, that’s when it’ll be there. No worries about refueling and cleaning, delays and inclement weather. A simple whisk into the station, doors open, people out, people in, doors close, and off you pop. They expect you to do your job and they’ll do theirs. Adult transportation for adults.
My love of trains extends underground. Subways, Metros, the Underground, whatever a city calls its system, they’re all essentially underground trains with the same perks and loveliness and freedom. I’ve used trains in SanFrancisco, New York, Washington D.C., London, Vienna, Madrid, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and with the exception of New York City, they’re all clean and comfortable. You buy your ticket, you slide it in, you get on the train, you get to wherever you want to go quick and cheap.
London has the best station names in the world: Barbican, Barking, Bayswater, Bethnal Green, Bermondsey, Blackfriars, Brixton . . . and that’s just the Bs.
It’s hard to beat the sound of Piccadilly, High Street Kensington, King’s Cross St Pancras, Waterloo, Westminster, or Tottenham Court. And you can’t beat the posh topping it gives to pretend to be local by saying: “Sint Jim-zes Square” or “Marlibone.”
Goodge Street makes me shake my head and Cockfosters makes me giggle. Andrew couldn’t seem to get the correct way to say “Gloucester” or “Leicester” to stick no matter how many times the pleasant voice on the loudspeaker reminded him.
I love how the air gets warmer the lower you go into the system and the whoosh of wind that comes and goes with the trains. I love how you can find one station that’s a minimalist platform above ground and then end up at a modernist work of art with five levels of steel below the surface. I love the colors and names of the various lines: green for District, yellow for Circle, dark blue for Jubilee. I love the playbills along the walls of the escalators and the tiled circular tunnels. I love the tube diagrams that give you exactly the information you need for getting from one point in the city to another but expect you to understand that distances are not to scale. It knows the information you need, it won’t patronize you by cluttering up your life with the irrelevant.
Everywhere, layer upon layer of Londoners striding confidently to their destinations. Up and down, in and out, knowing exactly which stop is theirs and barely looking up from their phones as they zip through the windy tunnels, doors sliding open and shut like silk. Every other form of transportation has been molded by our insistence on safety and order: seat belts for cars, TSA for airports, bike helmets and random checks and airbags but for some reason trains operate much as they’ve done for 200 years. No safety rails to keep us from the tracks, no sentries to check our bags, no straps to keep us in our seats. You get on, you get off at a new place, and you mind the gap. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and it’s a city at its best.
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