the guard woke me up as he checked the carriages with the train in the sidings

ex flatmate did that.
Was sposed to be last tube to earls court, change to wimbledon line. ended up in Richmond sidings. Should have just got a cab in the first place.

I did Huelva – Seville – Madrid – Lyon – Grenoble over a long weekend using only local trains and surviving on one chorizo and some stale bread. Occasionally I went backwards and I did spend a lot of time waiting on station platforms for trains I wasn’t sure were even running.

Ah, student travel!

I arrived late on a Monday night exhausted at Grenoble Uni halls and the receptionist told me flatly that there were no rooms available. So I fished out a letter from my college and he looked at it and said “Oh, you, yes we’ve got a room for you!” then gave me the one room in the halls that nobody wanted because it has the gas heating regulator in a tin box outside the window, which hissed loudly all day and night. Also there was a constant rain of reject food, rubbish and used condoms falling loudly on the tin roof from the floors above. When I opened the blind in the morning and saw a snowy Alp I don’t mind admitting that I was so overwhelmed that I bubbled a bit.

I love train travel. By far the most civilised way to get around. Comfortable to sit. You can get up and wander round. Carry your own food and booze. Travel city centre to city centre with a minimum of queueing.

Nairobi – Mombassa sleeper watching wildlife through the parks.
Mexico City – Guadalahara – Cuidad Juarez (then enter the US on foot..). Third class mexican trains give the indian railways a run for their money
Southern Turkey to Istanbul sleeper
Galle – Kandy in SriLanka
Bangkok – Chiang Mai
Hanoi – Saigon
Most of my travel in India – Gorakhpur-Varanassi-Delhi-around Rajasthan
Luxor – Cairo sleeper

European stuff is less interesting and usually expensive compared to flying but much more civilised. Anything involving TGV/ICE/Eurostar/Swiss Railways is a breeze.
London to Alps Ski train sleeper was great when it ran. 2 extra days on the slopes vs flying.
South of France (Carcassonne) is easy
Switzerland I’ve done a load of times.
London – Fort William sleeper was a great way to start riding the Great Glen

I’ve got this idea about flying out to Turkey and coming back by train. Needs a good few weeks though.

The Man in Seat 61 is the font of all knowledge

Perth to Sydney.

3 days of playing Canasta and looking at **** kangaroos on the Nullaboor Plain. You weren’t allowed to drink booze not bought from the train, so we had a couple of bottles, jumped off at one of the stations and bought a slab of the same make and just kept recirculating the bottle. Must have looked like real cheapskates to make a single beer last 72 hours…

36hrs Jodhpur -> Margao in india

That’s not the same as Madgaon, is it?

India is probably one of the best examples of epic rail journeys. Arriving into Agra at 6am while the locals were performing their morning ablutions by the tracks was interesting – and stinky

I was the only one not in a couple. The couple in question were very, erm, close. The WHOLE journey.

@CFH – are you claiming this as a (sub-optimal) threesome ?

The trains in Vietnam are a great way to see the county South to North all the way up to Sapa (note you can do a “van uplift” there, then roll 10k down the road to the rice fields on a rented “mountain bike” – I’d post a photo but I look even more ridiculous than usual)

Not personally, but one of the offshore guys in my team started his holidays yesterday and was leaving on a 2-day train trip (across India) to get to his parents. I didn’t ask if he’d be hanging off the outside or had a seat though.

Bit of a resurrection, but I’d recommend some of the American journeys – the scenery can be pretty epic, particularly on some of the mountain passes. The Empire Builder or the California Zephyr, Chicago to Seattle and Oakland respectively would be a very pleasant way to spend 3 days!

Makes you realise how good British railways really are too.

Boulogne to Innsbruck took seventeen hours, some nice scenery though

London Liverpool Street to Beijing in ’95 for me – 10 nights. Boat across the Channel to Hook of Holland, train to Moscow, change on to Trans Siberian. Arrive in Beijing a week later. Fantastic adventure seeing Europe slowly turn into Asia.

Walsall to Wolverhampton.