I’ll never forget a train ride in Italy back in 1978 when I went on my first trip to Europe from the US with my sister, cousin, aunt, and uncle. We spent five weeks traveling to see various relatives and on one long train trip from Rome to Florence, the five of us were sitting in a compartment with a stranger. It was one of those small compartments in a corridor coach where you have three seats directly facing another three seats. After a couple of hours, the stranger pulled out his packed lunch which looked like a bit of bread and cheese and awkwardly looked at all of us offering to share what he had. Though he had precious little to share, it was clear that he couldn’t bring himself to eat in front of us unless he had first invited us to eat with him.
I only joined your posts a week ago and already I am delighted! Thank you! I am a huge fan of trains (and steam trains) and the ability to slow down from crazy pace of life. Your point about community is also an interesting insight too.
You definitely made me smile regarding pre-teen consciousness - my son is 12 so just on the cusp of the shifts which happen and my husband and I love the moments when the child still shows - precious and to be savoured as much as possible (even if a little unsavoury at the time!!)
I just wrote an essay on making decisions by asking: "does this bring us closer to our humanity?" And in asking that question, I took a 24-hour train journey from Seattle to San Francisco instead of flying there in an hour and a half. I could have driven but ugh, I just couldn't stand the thought. Thank you for teaching me the difference between a tool and a device. I've been pondering the use of AI and your delineation is very helpful.
Beautiful...the difference between tool and device is also dependent on the relation we have with the thing. A car can be a great tool, so can phones, or planes. But the toolness of things is largely discouraged in a society that fosters and promotes one way dependencies and not two way relations. Tools demand responsibility.
In my experience this reciprocal relation with the tool often results in the kind of magic and effortlessness we crave. The kind that asks engagement...
Another distinction is how those who work on highways and railways feel about it. I’ve worked on both - local authority highway departments see themselves as part of the council’s public service provision, but rail has its own identity, and the concept of the “railway family” is really strong regardless of who you actually work for. One expression of this started during the pandemic: Rail Wellbeing Live is a beautiful three-day festival of how to support each other as human beings with bodies and minds that need to be well cared for. I often say as a manager that my my job is to look after the engineers so that they can look after the railway
What would it be like to use the architecture of great European railway stations as inspiration for writing a ‘setting off in the car’ prayer…? 🤔
If the physical infrastructure to inspire collective harmony isn’t there when driving, perhaps it can be achieved through cultural infrastructure… A similar prayer to be said when pulling in to a Welcome Break :)
I could feel the dreaded sweat-push-lights-stress-concrete of service stations as I read this. They are soul-sapping places. Living in Devon with parents-in-law in Northumberland means being more familiar with them than I’d like… the train is about £5692589 though. And a toddler means the car is more flexible. But….urgh. Thanks for this piece 🙏
Your writing is such a joy! I also think there is something really lovely about train travel (although I can cite a few desperate moments of sweaty, overstimulated exhaustion I've experienced on the LNER Azuma). Would love to know how plane travel fits into the spectrum!
Thank you so much for this post which articulates beautifully my feelings about travel and transport. Yes, walking is my number one way of engaging with the world and as a pilgrim walking from Canterbury to Rome in stages (Ivrea so far), the connection, rewards and sheer joy are part of the process. Then trains. I simply love them and the romance of crossing landscapes and countries, and the conversations that emerge. Flying revolts me now and the car similarly although we still have one - it's 10 years old and has done fewer than 40000 miles. I'd love to let it go but the occasional need to drive my 92 year old mum means we're keeping it. I drove up to the coast yesterday - first time in ages. Hostile tailgaters, corpse of a badger in a ditch, cars crawling through a village where there was no room on the pavement for dog walkers, let alone parents and children, the hot, noisy, dust of dual carriageway through countryside - wished I'd walked or taken a bus where at least the damage is concentrated and there's a chance to talk to strangers.
Yesterday, I was rereading David B Schwartz's contribution to The Challenges of Ivan Illich, where he homes in on the concept of "rests", which Illich uses in the sense of "remnants". Schwartz begins with a story about standing in line to fill water jugs at a spring in the hills where his grandfather lived in upstate New York, the ritual of falling into conversation with neighbours while waiting your turn, and how as a child you learned this ritual by listening to the grown-ups talk. Then he describes queuing at a coin-fed water dispenser outside a supermarket in Harrisburg, surrounded by asphalt and concrete, the placelessness of a late twentieth century city, but how the one element in this experience that stands out is the conversation he strikes up with the man in front of him: "This one friendly exchange, a short bit of local conversation, would have been familiar and recognizable to my grandfather." Schwartz talks about "clearing the eyes" to notice these kinds of remnants, these pockets of "I–Thou" within a world whose demands for efficiency tend towards "I–It". Your description of the difference between the train carriage and the motorway service station feels like the kind of act of noticing that he is speaking for, an attentiveness to the "cracks that disclose something real".
That distinction between tools and devices is insightful. I wonder if eventually the devices will become so sophisticated that, to quote Clarke's Law, they become indistinguishable from magic. In that case, we may go full circle - they will be like the magical weapons of legend, that can only be wielded by the pure of heart.
We are full-time road travelers, my husband and I, but we love the train, as well and jump at any chance for a long journey on the rails.
This last week we spent three unplanned days at a dusty, rural American truck stop, awaiting parts to fix our vehicle. It showed me a different side of road travel. The truck stop became a haven for us; the staff, a makeshift community. I wrote about it.
Thank you for the beauty and thoughtfulness you consistently present here.
I’ll never forget a train ride in Italy back in 1978 when I went on my first trip to Europe from the US with my sister, cousin, aunt, and uncle. We spent five weeks traveling to see various relatives and on one long train trip from Rome to Florence, the five of us were sitting in a compartment with a stranger. It was one of those small compartments in a corridor coach where you have three seats directly facing another three seats. After a couple of hours, the stranger pulled out his packed lunch which looked like a bit of bread and cheese and awkwardly looked at all of us offering to share what he had. Though he had precious little to share, it was clear that he couldn’t bring himself to eat in front of us unless he had first invited us to eat with him.
I only joined your posts a week ago and already I am delighted! Thank you! I am a huge fan of trains (and steam trains) and the ability to slow down from crazy pace of life. Your point about community is also an interesting insight too.
You definitely made me smile regarding pre-teen consciousness - my son is 12 so just on the cusp of the shifts which happen and my husband and I love the moments when the child still shows - precious and to be savoured as much as possible (even if a little unsavoury at the time!!)
'Don't wish it past,
Don't speed on by,
For one day you will wonder why
You didn't dance amid the waves
And really make that moment last'
I just wrote an essay on making decisions by asking: "does this bring us closer to our humanity?" And in asking that question, I took a 24-hour train journey from Seattle to San Francisco instead of flying there in an hour and a half. I could have driven but ugh, I just couldn't stand the thought. Thank you for teaching me the difference between a tool and a device. I've been pondering the use of AI and your delineation is very helpful.
I wrote about it here, if you're interested: https://divinenature.substack.com/p/the-homemade-life
Beautiful...the difference between tool and device is also dependent on the relation we have with the thing. A car can be a great tool, so can phones, or planes. But the toolness of things is largely discouraged in a society that fosters and promotes one way dependencies and not two way relations. Tools demand responsibility.
In my experience this reciprocal relation with the tool often results in the kind of magic and effortlessness we crave. The kind that asks engagement...
I will share this with friends we are meeting in Glasgow, both travelling by train. Thank you.
Another distinction is how those who work on highways and railways feel about it. I’ve worked on both - local authority highway departments see themselves as part of the council’s public service provision, but rail has its own identity, and the concept of the “railway family” is really strong regardless of who you actually work for. One expression of this started during the pandemic: Rail Wellbeing Live is a beautiful three-day festival of how to support each other as human beings with bodies and minds that need to be well cared for. I often say as a manager that my my job is to look after the engineers so that they can look after the railway
https://www.railwellbeinglive.co.uk
What would it be like to use the architecture of great European railway stations as inspiration for writing a ‘setting off in the car’ prayer…? 🤔
If the physical infrastructure to inspire collective harmony isn’t there when driving, perhaps it can be achieved through cultural infrastructure… A similar prayer to be said when pulling in to a Welcome Break :)
I could feel the dreaded sweat-push-lights-stress-concrete of service stations as I read this. They are soul-sapping places. Living in Devon with parents-in-law in Northumberland means being more familiar with them than I’d like… the train is about £5692589 though. And a toddler means the car is more flexible. But….urgh. Thanks for this piece 🙏
Your writing is such a joy! I also think there is something really lovely about train travel (although I can cite a few desperate moments of sweaty, overstimulated exhaustion I've experienced on the LNER Azuma). Would love to know how plane travel fits into the spectrum!
Thank you so much for this post which articulates beautifully my feelings about travel and transport. Yes, walking is my number one way of engaging with the world and as a pilgrim walking from Canterbury to Rome in stages (Ivrea so far), the connection, rewards and sheer joy are part of the process. Then trains. I simply love them and the romance of crossing landscapes and countries, and the conversations that emerge. Flying revolts me now and the car similarly although we still have one - it's 10 years old and has done fewer than 40000 miles. I'd love to let it go but the occasional need to drive my 92 year old mum means we're keeping it. I drove up to the coast yesterday - first time in ages. Hostile tailgaters, corpse of a badger in a ditch, cars crawling through a village where there was no room on the pavement for dog walkers, let alone parents and children, the hot, noisy, dust of dual carriageway through countryside - wished I'd walked or taken a bus where at least the damage is concentrated and there's a chance to talk to strangers.
I have missed your voice! Thank you for this. ❤️
You’re lovely thank you
Yesterday, I was rereading David B Schwartz's contribution to The Challenges of Ivan Illich, where he homes in on the concept of "rests", which Illich uses in the sense of "remnants". Schwartz begins with a story about standing in line to fill water jugs at a spring in the hills where his grandfather lived in upstate New York, the ritual of falling into conversation with neighbours while waiting your turn, and how as a child you learned this ritual by listening to the grown-ups talk. Then he describes queuing at a coin-fed water dispenser outside a supermarket in Harrisburg, surrounded by asphalt and concrete, the placelessness of a late twentieth century city, but how the one element in this experience that stands out is the conversation he strikes up with the man in front of him: "This one friendly exchange, a short bit of local conversation, would have been familiar and recognizable to my grandfather." Schwartz talks about "clearing the eyes" to notice these kinds of remnants, these pockets of "I–Thou" within a world whose demands for efficiency tend towards "I–It". Your description of the difference between the train carriage and the motorway service station feels like the kind of act of noticing that he is speaking for, an attentiveness to the "cracks that disclose something real".
I love that word 'placelessness'.
That distinction between tools and devices is insightful. I wonder if eventually the devices will become so sophisticated that, to quote Clarke's Law, they become indistinguishable from magic. In that case, we may go full circle - they will be like the magical weapons of legend, that can only be wielded by the pure of heart.
We are full-time road travelers, my husband and I, but we love the train, as well and jump at any chance for a long journey on the rails.
This last week we spent three unplanned days at a dusty, rural American truck stop, awaiting parts to fix our vehicle. It showed me a different side of road travel. The truck stop became a haven for us; the staff, a makeshift community. I wrote about it.
Thank you for the beauty and thoughtfulness you consistently present here.
One of my favourite poems from school, about an excited boy on a train: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/boy-train/
I liked your comparison between tools and devices I had never thought about it in that way. Thank you.