Eurostar has just announced that it’s running more trains due to high demand – there will now be 30,000 seats available on Fridays alone from the UK to the continent. Now that the trains depart from St Pancras, and through-fares from cities to the north are available, people are clamoring for tickets.
Which is all good. Trains are by far the most civilised way to travel, even if you no longer get the mahogany-and-gilt style of the Orient Express days. Upgrade to first class on the Eurostar and you’ll get a waiter-served meal – Gordon Ramsay it aint, but there’s something inexplicably romantic about eating with a knife and fork while rumbling across the countryside by rail.
Of course there’s the carbon footprint to consider – this is the creme de la creme of eco-travel (well, almost – coaches boast lower emissions, but there is nothing romantic about coaches…), so you can feel smug while you chug.
I can’t give up flying. I just don’t want to. And I don’t have time to take the bus to Australia. But I do take the train when possible, such as on a recent trip from London to Istanbul, recreating my own plushed-down version of that old Orient E grandeur (to find out more, click here). It took ten days (with stops) – significantly longer than the 3.5 hour direct flight – but it was SO MUCH MORE FUN. You don’t get to take a steam bath with a load of rotund Hungarians on the plane, do you? Or watch the Serbian national side lose to Ukraine in a local-filled bar. Or eat big cakes at a cafe frequented by Hitler.
We need to further embrace the train, to fall in love again with the railways (as much as National Rail has tried to make us hate them), and to use them for every journey its feasibly possible to. We just need Eurostar and the other train operators to make them as cheap as the planes. Let’s hear it for Ryanrail…
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