Ireland: Rail & Sail

Act 2: Rail & Sail

As you may have gleaned from past posts such as this one or that, eco-tourism is something I'm pretty keen on. I see it more as a challenge than a grim necessity. I often find myself staring at maps of the world, and wondering how you would get to the most remote or distant places by land, rather than air. Japan.. by train? India.. by train? According to the man in seat 61, for the latter you only have to go through Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, coordinating once-weekly train to Iran with bi-monthly train to the Pakistan border. Simples. Among my dreams of intrepid travel (if rail can be 'intrepid') the Trans-Siberian Express and the Orient Express also feature. One day, I'll make it real..

I suppose going to Ireland by Rail & Sail was, then, really just a 'pompom' version of these long-distance Babs-to-Brisbane style expeditions. But it was equally funtastic. Our itinerary looked a little something like this:

10am Cam. arr. Nuneaton 12:08pm

12:17pm Nuneaton arr. Crewe 1:38pm

1:49pm Crewe arr. Chester 2:12pm

2:23pm Chester arr. Holyhead 4:15pm

5:15pm Holyhead arr. Dublin Port 7:15pm

There's a funny scene in Willem Elsschot's Villa des Roses, where the love-rat Grünewald leaves a message for his beloved, Louise, saying that he's returning from Paris to his native East Posen (pre-war German Poland). She determines to follow him, until she realises it requires an elaborate rail journey changing at all the godforsaken corners of the German empire... And it transpires that Grünewald is 'shacked up' with his new America lover in a flat about 100m away from Louise's home.

(This is by no means to say that I was duped by an Irish lover into an epic but unnecessary exodus off the West coast of Wales. Far from it).

I may be biased, but I'm a big advocate of the train. In spite of all the public flagellation the rail service gets, in general it delivers a fantastic – and punctual – service. Of course, environmentally, the issue isn't as straightforward as 'trains are better than planes'. High-speed trains are more efficient than the likes of the slow diesel-chuggers of the Buxton-Manchester line. As McGarvey pointed out to me, too, the environmental impact of habitat destruction, as well as the pollutive aspect of maintaining and servicing the railway industry, need to be taken into account.

(In its defence, though, you could say the same of any method of transport, to a certain degree removed: planes and runways need servicing, passengers drive to the airport, special catering vehicles bring food on board, tankers refuel the plane – and all of these depend on fossil fuels. This wasn't intended to turn into an environmental rant, but it might be too late.. don't get me started on the blind and thoughtless consumerism that takes over when 99.7% of people drive a car, myself included).

Environmental issues aside, the time spent on a train doesn't feel wasted (to me): you can't read and drive in a car (well, not legally.. Maybe I'd feel differently if I weren't a bit of a worm when it comes to books (not a big 800-pages-an-hour earth/bookworm like some people, but a sort of bookmaggot). I tried to invest in audiobooks to get around this problem, but tended to zone out in a way you can't when the book's in your head). You have the sensation of travelling in real-time, too – a speed simultaneously slow enough to be able to pick out landmarks and admire landscapes (OK, just me then..), and fast enough to be where you want to be in a reasonable length of time.

And so, after a reasonably reasonable length of time we arrived in Dublin, having made good dents in our books and Rosie having made the large part of a 'nalbinding' hat, which was sadly a little more Peter Pan than Winter Chic...!