Great Railway Journeys

Over the years, BBC has prepared several television series showcasing railway journeys on some of the most remote and exotic routes in the world. These documentaries not only depict railways, but also the countries in which these journeys took place. This book contains the stories of the journeys undertaken in the mid-1990s, as told by the presenters themselves, lavishly illustrated by the renowned travel photographer Tom Edmunds. All of them provide detailed accounts of countries and cultures which are fast disappearing.---The first journey in the book is about a railway system which seems oddly familiar, from the pen of a writer who appears more Indian than British. Mark Tully travels from Karachi to Khyber Pass in Pakistan, taking a detour on the steeply graded line to Quetta. In the author’s own words: “If a train is scheduled to go fast you expect it to do just that, and get tense and irritated when it’s even a few minutes late. In South Asia you happily hand over your destiny to the railways, and settle down to enjoy the luxury of being completely cut off from the rest of the world for the longer the better.”Mark Tully is known to be a railfan and he travels much of the distance on the footplate of the oil-fired steam locomotives running in Pakistan in those days. “I put my head out of the cab and saw the green light of a signal in the distance,” he says, “Below it something seemed to be on fire. As we got nearer I saw that it was a flaming torch carried by a railwayman to let us know he was standing there with the token which would allow us to the enter the next section of the line. The driver slowed down slightly and the fireman leaned out of the cab to hook his arm through the wire hoops holding the token.”---What better travelling companion can you ask for than a globetrotting novelist whose very name sounds like “train”? Lisa St Aubin de Teran was born in London, but her ancestry is Portuguese, Dutch, Carib Indian, Brazilian, Venezuelan, West Indian, German, English, Irish, Scottish and French! Here she recalls her travels from Santos, Brazil (the hometown of football star Pele) to the remote Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. “There is only one train today,” she reports, “and the frontier formalities have allowed barely enough time to catch it. Minor miracles are taken for granted in the timetable, and distance is virtually ignored…” The railway is quite dysfunctional, but she breaks her journey frequently, swigging the local brews and eating unappetizing meals topped with fried eggs served on cardboard plates.Lisa does not describe the locomotives, tracks or signals – her attention is elsewhere. In her own words: “Through all the upheavals, scandals and loves of my life, there has always been a constant factor in my love of flowers; this has expanded to trees and birds and those places where they most naturally abound. The Pantanal swamp is larger than Britain, spreading across the Mato Grasso do Sul and the Bolivian and Paraguayan frontiers. It is famous for its stillness and beauty…”---London-based barrister and writer Clive Anderson presents the third journey, crossing China and reaching Mongolia. His journey starts in Hong Kong, “an accident of history rather than geography,” which was still under British Rule at that time. Anderson finds Hong Kong to be reassuringly familiar: “A statue of Queen Victoria here, a Leyland bus there.” “Say what you like about the British Empire,” he concludes, “at least it was consistent.”The journey continues on the Chinese mainland, beginning at Shenzen and continuing via Canton, Shanghai and Beijing, till the author crosses the border and reaches Ulaan Baater, the capital of Mongolia: “A proud people, they remember their past glories as a great empire when they ruled half the world. They live in a cold, northerly country with a crumbling economy, bad food and an uncertain future. Hey, this could be Britain.”After crossing the Great Wall, Anderson breaks journey at Datong “a famously coal-dust polluted city” where the railway factory “cheerfully accepts visitors to see carriages being made in stages from molten metal to complete units, unhampered by some of the more intrusive safety regulations which are such a check on productivity in England.” (Such details highlight how much the situation has changed since this journey took place. This reviewer visited the works of China Northern Railway at Datong in 2011 and observed the manufacture of high horsepower electric locomotives. The city was remarkably clean and there was no trace of coal dust).Coming back to the journey, Anderson is disappointed by Chinese trains: “In hard sleepers the beds are not in compartments but arranged in bunks of three – upper, middle and lower – all opening directly on to the corridor of the train. Privacy is at a minimum. But the sheets and blankets are perfectly clean…” Today, China has the world’s biggest high speed rail network, offering higher speed, better comfort and lower fares than most of Europe.---As this review is becoming quite long, I will refrain from writing about the other three journeys, but simply say that this is a book to be read and enjoyed at leisure!

Great Railway Journeys  is a BBC Books produced as a tie-in to a television series. It contains six essays accompanying photographs by Tom Owen Edmunds. Both the writing and the photographs are generally good.The essays include the following. Mark Tully, a BBC Bureau Chief in India, writes about a trip through Pakistan. Lisa St Aubin de Teran, an English novelist, writes about a trip through Bolivia and Brazil. Clive Anderson, a barrister and comedy writer, writes about a trip through China. Natalia Makarova, a ballerina, writes about a trip through Russia. Michael Palin, professional traveler and writer, writes about a trip through Ireland. Rian Malan, author and journalist, writes about a trip through South Africa.Each essay follows the same formulaic pattern and the result is a bit dull - rather like the paragraph above. Similarly, there are an awful lot of high quality photos of steam trains in remote locations that have a certain sameness to them. The quality of the essays is uneven. Some of the best writing and photographs come from Natalia Makarova's account of the Russian trip while Michael Palin's account of Ireland is disappointing.Still there are some stunning photos throughout and some very fine writing that overall make for a very pleasurable reading experience. Great Railway Journeys

As an avid reader and collector of both travel and train books this was a wonderful addition to my collection, The is the first of the series (the second, of course, being More Great Railway Journeys, BBC Penguin). This series collates the travel narratives of various contributors drawn from a wide reach and - because it is based on a BBC Television series - they are all noted personalities in their own field. This first book includes Clive Anderson, a noted English barrister, author and comedy writer, and Natalia Makorova the internationally acclaimed ballerina. Also included are several `professional' travelers and authors - Michael Palin, Mark Tully and the South African author Rian Malan. Each contributor offers the reader a great individual chapter on vastly different railways systems, countries and cultures.These little books, from the British Broadcasting service (BBC) could lead a new travel narrative reader into further additions to their catalogues and indeed, into an obsession with the genre. It is a great place to be .....Chapt 1 - Mark Tully - for more on Indian and Pakistan Railways the authors own No Full Stops in India, or Paul Theroux's The Imperial Way : By Rail from Peshawar to Chittagong.Chapt 2 - Lisa St Aubin de Teran - for more on South American rail, Theroux again with his The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas.Chapt 3 - Clive Anderson- for more on China perhaps Simon Winchester's book, The River at the Center of the World.Chapt 4 - Natalia Makorova - for more on Russia and perhaps as a little antidote for her rather endearing if sugary view of her `Mother Russia', Eric Newby's expose of the real Soviet Train System, Big Red Train Ride or on a kinder note perhaps Mary Morris on traveling in the opposite direction, Wall to Wall: From Beijing to Berlin by Rail.Chapt 5 - Michael Palin - for more on Ireland with a similar wit and personal quest, Pete McCarthy's McCarthy's BarChapt 6 - Rian Malan - for more on South Africa, although this author can not easily be bettered on his native land, perhaps H V Morton's In search of South Africa.

Writing and photos were well done. A look at a world of travel now gone. Reminds me why I loved the tv series.