There's something so magical about trains. I love this description of a Paris train station in Bowen's The House in Paris:
“Where are we going now? The station is sounding, resounding, full of steam caught on light and arches of dark air: a temple to the intention to go somewhere. Sustained sound in the shell of stone and steel, racket and running, impatience and purpose, make the soul stand still like a refugee, clutching all it has got, asking: “I am where?”
Trains and train stations also play a significant part in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. He mentioned that the train stations are a society place in its own, where the passengers would gather in between journey. One long scene In Book 4 Sodom Gomorrah took place during the train journey that took him and other passengers to the Verdurin's
This was a great read and I loved the paintings. To add two poems…WH Auden's 'Night Mail' - and check out the video on YouTube made by the Post Office. Also Robert Louis Stevenson 'From a Railway Carriage'. My grandparents met on a train in 1922 within a year they had married and had my mother…
Dickens' The Signalman is a terrific ghost story. Dickens himself was scared of the speed of trains, unheard of till then, and predictably was in a rail accident
Utterly love trains! I had not read A dream for winter before and it was so beautiful- capturing exactly how I’ve always felt! Love the Hopper painting too. Thank you as always for the lovely beginning to a Sunday!
Great article. Makes me want to go on a long train journey with books to read. Emma Donoghue has a new book out called The Paris Express. Based on an infamous 1895 disaster at the Montparnase train station. Might be worth a read.
I once traveled on a train across the continent when I was 13. My mother insisted on the train I think because it reminded her of when she was a newlywed and traveled to meet my father as he came back from the war. It was the late 60s before Amtrak and there were club cars with substantial men sipping whiskey and old black men in smart uniforms. I listened to a man describing the Jack Dempsey - Gene Tunney fight. And wonder of wonders, the train stopped for two hours in Cheyenne, Wyoming during Frontier days. I could have lived on that train the rest of my life.
It was glorious. Watching the world from a dome car! The best thing about a train ride no one talks about is that train tracks are literally off the beaten track. The go behind peoples back yards, past junkyards, and cow pastures and all the hidden part of the world you don't see from a highway. And the kids are the ones that wave. Because even though they have never been on a train, they somehow know the passengers are on a great adventure, riding two million pounds of steel.
*WARNING* Britain's homeland antiterror investigation unit, considers Michael Palin's great British railway journeys to be a book of interest to those deemed "Far Right".
After reading (and viewing the beautiful artworks) I've suddenly felt an urge to goosestep - I've came over all "Far right"!
And trains and stations are something distinctive British, yes there's cars and busses on the wrong side of the road but it trains and the manifold stations that show the UK
This is so evocative... will link to it in my next post, about RC Sherriff going off to war (from Charing Cross station, but the Liverpool St one is so good!) Richard Dadds' paintings of London railway stations are also terrific and very poignant; as a war artist, he died in 1916.
The Railway Children! Trains are especially important in children's books, maybe because children can travel on pretty much on the same terms as the adults. So they can escape to a new world. All those boarding school books: Harry Potter, Mallory Towers, and my own favourites, Antonia Forest's Kingscote novels.
I live in Slovenia and train back to the UK each summer and winter. I go via Venice-Milan-Zurich or sometimes down to Genoa then via Nice to Paris. I avoid German trains at all costs and sigh with relief when I get on an Italian train.
Secondly these extracts are wonderful future reading lists. I will read the Waves by Virginia Woolf from this selection.
This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Asksripour — a genre melding literary sci fi novel — centers trains in both its timelines, 2028 (NYC transit) and in 2529.
There's something so magical about trains. I love this description of a Paris train station in Bowen's The House in Paris:
“Where are we going now? The station is sounding, resounding, full of steam caught on light and arches of dark air: a temple to the intention to go somewhere. Sustained sound in the shell of stone and steel, racket and running, impatience and purpose, make the soul stand still like a refugee, clutching all it has got, asking: “I am where?”
Ooh I love this! Thanks for sharing
Trains and train stations also play a significant part in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. He mentioned that the train stations are a society place in its own, where the passengers would gather in between journey. One long scene In Book 4 Sodom Gomorrah took place during the train journey that took him and other passengers to the Verdurin's
This is a great recommendation! Thank you
This was a great read and I loved the paintings. To add two poems…WH Auden's 'Night Mail' - and check out the video on YouTube made by the Post Office. Also Robert Louis Stevenson 'From a Railway Carriage'. My grandparents met on a train in 1922 within a year they had married and had my mother…
Thank you Liz, I'm not sure how I forgot Night Mail but the Stevenson I've never read - I'll check it out! Thanks for commenting
Prose and visual art to cherish and to re-read when the spirit moves. Perfect for Sunday afternoon.
Dickens' The Signalman is a terrific ghost story. Dickens himself was scared of the speed of trains, unheard of till then, and predictably was in a rail accident
Utterly love trains! I had not read A dream for winter before and it was so beautiful- capturing exactly how I’ve always felt! Love the Hopper painting too. Thank you as always for the lovely beginning to a Sunday!
Great article. Makes me want to go on a long train journey with books to read. Emma Donoghue has a new book out called The Paris Express. Based on an infamous 1895 disaster at the Montparnase train station. Might be worth a read.
I once traveled on a train across the continent when I was 13. My mother insisted on the train I think because it reminded her of when she was a newlywed and traveled to meet my father as he came back from the war. It was the late 60s before Amtrak and there were club cars with substantial men sipping whiskey and old black men in smart uniforms. I listened to a man describing the Jack Dempsey - Gene Tunney fight. And wonder of wonders, the train stopped for two hours in Cheyenne, Wyoming during Frontier days. I could have lived on that train the rest of my life.
This sounds like magic 😊
It was glorious. Watching the world from a dome car! The best thing about a train ride no one talks about is that train tracks are literally off the beaten track. The go behind peoples back yards, past junkyards, and cow pastures and all the hidden part of the world you don't see from a highway. And the kids are the ones that wave. Because even though they have never been on a train, they somehow know the passengers are on a great adventure, riding two million pounds of steel.
*WARNING* Britain's homeland antiterror investigation unit, considers Michael Palin's great British railway journeys to be a book of interest to those deemed "Far Right".
After reading (and viewing the beautiful artworks) I've suddenly felt an urge to goosestep - I've came over all "Far right"!
And trains and stations are something distinctive British, yes there's cars and busses on the wrong side of the road but it trains and the manifold stations that show the UK
This is so evocative... will link to it in my next post, about RC Sherriff going off to war (from Charing Cross station, but the Liverpool St one is so good!) Richard Dadds' paintings of London railway stations are also terrific and very poignant; as a war artist, he died in 1916.
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check out Dadds work
https://akennedysmith.substack.com/p/nothing-to-fear
A terrific anthology
Hadn't seen many of those paintings before.
The Railway Children! Trains are especially important in children's books, maybe because children can travel on pretty much on the same terms as the adults. So they can escape to a new world. All those boarding school books: Harry Potter, Mallory Towers, and my own favourites, Antonia Forest's Kingscote novels.
I live in Slovenia and train back to the UK each summer and winter. I go via Venice-Milan-Zurich or sometimes down to Genoa then via Nice to Paris. I avoid German trains at all costs and sigh with relief when I get on an Italian train.
Secondly these extracts are wonderful future reading lists. I will read the Waves by Virginia Woolf from this selection.
May favorite passage from Anna K. The only part i liked, to be honest!
This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Asksripour — a genre melding literary sci fi novel — centers trains in both its timelines, 2028 (NYC transit) and in 2529.