Posted by Peter Ceresole on May 12, 2012 at 10:05:05 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Arthur Ransome's Railways posted by Dave Thewlis on May 11, 2012 at 14:18:49:
What an absolutely splendid piece; thank you very much, Davids.
I do remember after 1945 travelling every summer by second class Southern railway to catch a packet (usually the 'Canterbury') at Newhaven or Dover- on the way to Paris and eventually to Geneva, where much of our family lived (and still does). My dad had railway connections- he was for a time a Swiss Railways rep in London- and he always claimed that second class was just as comfortable as first, which to his mind was overkill.
Crossing France was a very long drawn out affair; just after the war the speed was very slow, bridges were out, the spans lying in the rivers while the train crawled across on Army Engineers' bridges. That was fascinating for a small boy, but much of the journey was really, really boring.
My most recent trip across a chunk of France (Cannes to Geneva) was by TGV. As different an experience as it's possible to be. But I'll never, ever forget those broken bridges, or the endless parked lines of burnt out engines and wagons left over from the air interdiction campaign.