Railway Travel Quotes

I have written stories, essays, even whole books on trains, scribble-scribble.

So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.

I miss riding those fast trains in Japan... 'cause I'd never seen a train that fast in my life.

Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.

And then away for home! Away to the quickest and nearest train! Away from this cursed land, where the devil and his children stil walk with earthly feet!

Oh, who would choose to be a traveler? --That anxious railway-guide unravelerWho spends his nights in berths and bunks,His days in chaperoning trunks;Who stands in line at gates and wicketsTo spend his means on costly ticketsTo Irkutsk, Liverpool and YapAnd other dots upon the map.

No restaurant, however brilliantly situated, can give you the constantly changing views that you can see from a railway. Revolving restaurants at the tops of tall buildings try to compete, but spinning around is no substitute for speeding along.

Travelling the railways of Europe with a century-old guidebook can be disconcerting: fares, food, and drink seem shockingly expensive compared with what they were; trains and paddle-steamers run to unexpected timetables (assuming they're still running at all); and not only states but whole empires have been wiped from the map.

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.

Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the stations. Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water.