September 20, 2008
DIS-CERNING TRAVEL:
Our love affair with the train: Commuting by train brings us together in a very down to earth way - something flying and all its associated queues and security cannot do (Lisa Jardine, 9/20/08, BBC Magazine)
Ever since my childhood I have particularly enjoyed travelling on trains. Trains give me a comforting feeling of independence and self-sufficiency, of being in control.From the station where you start your journey to your destination you know precisely in what direction you are going and how long it will take. You can make an excursion of it, choosing your route so that you admire the countryside and glimpse cathedral spires from your speeding train window.
On long journeys, you watch the landscape gradually unfolding, modulating from familiar to unfamiliar as you travel, and adjust your expectations while you are in transit.
By contrast, a plane journey from a chilly, rain-soaked London to the south of France tumbles you out onto the hot tarmac at Nice airport still wearing your waterproof shoes and heavy overcoat, and dazed by the easy Mediterranean pace of life after the hurly-burly of the city. [...]
My daily journey also reminded me how taking the train keeps you connected to your fellow human-beings. Everyone in Holland takes the train.
You mingle with people from all kinds of background, and everyone seems to look out for one another - helping with heavy bags, offering information, or simply chatting about the weather. The well-to-do and the hard-up travel side by side. It takes no time at all to feel at home with the Dutch as a people when you travel amongst them by train.
But the state prefers atomization and individuals isolated in their own cars.