Welcome to the train of fun

Five months ago, when I started both the experiment of not having a car and this blog about the experiment, I warned: “Never trust a mother who tells you that something inconvenient can be fun”. You would think that the children, and indeed E, would have learned the truth of that by now. But no; they all readily agreed to travel to the Isle of Mull by train.

The Isle of Mull was the destination of this year’s summer holiday, though the weather there made me suspect that it was no longer summer in the Scottish Islands. The idea was that it would be somewhere different, remote, beautiful. It was all these and more, including a very long way away. Hiring a car and driving there was an option but would have involved  an overnight stop, a lot of fuel and very tired drivers. And hey, we have a family railcard, we could take the sleep train from London to Glasgow, it would be FUN!

The phrase ‘sleeper’ when applied to trains, conjures up images of glamour, romance, Agatha Christie, though hopefully without a murder. I once travelled to Italy in a sleeper, stretched out in a berth on clean and, it turned out, disposable sheets. Somewhere near the Italian border, a member of train staff swept in before I was fully ready, and tore the sheets off the berths and threw them into rubbish bags before I could say: “Mi scusi, bra è da qualche parte sul letto”, a rough translation of which is, I hope, "Excuse me, my bra is somewhere on that bed”. I don’t suppose it was an expensive bra, but it had been useful.

I somehow thought we would travel to Scotland is similar fashion (though with complete sets of underwear). But no, there are five in our family, which meant booking two-and-a-half sleeping berths and there were not quite enough when we wanted to travel. We could book reclining seats. “It will be like being on an airplane,“ said E. The seats would be fine. It would be fun.

Fun it wasn’t, as the discomfort of trying to sleep in a dim light with one’s head at a strange angle to one‘s body, while people wander up and down the carriages, somehow reduces any fun element. So does having to keep three children happy. There was, however, a sense of satisfaction in racing through miles of country in the darkness. Memories of Auden’s Night Mail (“This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order“) came to mind, and though the present day train does not chug as pleasingly along as did the old steam train that Auden recalled (and Eliot in Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat), it still ate up the miles like a giant, dependable and friendly monster.

Glasgow in the early morning was bright and welcoming. Too often Glasgow receives a poor press in the media but even at 7.30am its wide streets were buzzing and there was a happy expectancy in the air. I’ve a feeling I would enjoy staying there.

After a few wrong turns and  minutes spent looking at maps on street corners we made our way from Glasgow Central Station to Glasgow Queen Street Station for the next stage of the journey to Oban. The train from there wound its way through stunning countryside, past lochs, along the side of glacial valleys, through forests. E took the opportunity to explain about pine plantations, a particular bug bear of his, for little grows in them apart from, you guessed it, pine. I took the opportunity to gaze at the scenery as I normally drive and so have to keep my eyes on the road, rather than the any lochs or plantations along the way. Later in the holiday I was driving (a hire car) and took my eyes off the road to look for whatever wildlife someone had exclaimed about. Fortunately the children are now strong enough to help push cars out of ditches. But that is another story.

And so to Oban, ready for a ferry to Mull. So far, so good. The journey was tiring but straightforward. And come on kids, it was sort of fun…