We slept on board Amtrak trains when crossing America. Someone
described it as like sleeping on a shelf in a cupboard and though I didn’t actually
sleep that much I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The strongest memory is of
the mournful hooting from the diesel locomotive as it approached every single road
crossing, accompanied by the “ting, tinging” of the fixed warning bells gradually fading away.
I’ve never used the sleeping car service in Britain, either the
Penzance version from Paddington or overnight to the Highlands of Scotland. It
is on my “to do” list. Simon Bradley has reminded me that “…what makes sleeping
and awakening on these trains so special is the promise of magical translation
to an utterly different place.” [The Railways, p.252]
In the early 1970s, I took an all-line rail rover for a week
with the intention of spending more or less the whole time on the move. After
my first overnight trip from Paddington to Plymouth on the sleeper train at the
end of day one - on the cushions and not in bed - I “woke” with such a banging
headache that it took days to shake off. I crawled home to the prized comfort of
my own bed each night thereafter.
What I remember most at first light in the West Country is watching
rabbits through an early morning mist - not just a few rabbits but millions of
them. The west of England is rabbit city.
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