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Riding the Rails With the Man in Seat 61

For train travelers, Mark Smith’s website is the go-to source for timetables, maps and booking details in more than 100 countries.

By Jackie Snow

Before the coronavirus pandemic caused major disruptions to travel worldwide, train travel found itself going through a bit of a renaissance as people reconsidered the carbon emissions squashed seating and increasing fees of flying. The man with a front-row seat to the rail resurgence is Mark Smith, the founder of the train travel website The Man in Seat 61 . His site has timetables, maps, reviews, booking details and everything else needed to plan train (and even some ferry) trips in more than 100 countries.

Mr. Smith started the site on a whim after buying a book on coding in 2001. He wanted a place to show how easy it was to take the train from Britain to locations across Europe and further abroad, and had noticed how hard it was to find information on how to do it.

“The travel industry is really set up to sell you flights, flights, car hires and more flights,” he said.

In 2007 he was able to quit his job with British Rail to run the site full-time. Today, The Man in Seat 61 gets up to a million visitors a month, with dedicated readers across the world sending in alerts when landslides, fuel shortages and other events disrupt train schedules.

What sparked your interest in trains?

Well, it’s an interest in travel. But trains and ships treat you like a human being. You get to see where you’re going, and the journey can be as exciting and interesting as the destination. Sometimes, in this world of air travel, we forget that.

How often are you on a train?

I have a young family, with kids ages 11 and 13, so I can’t get away all the time. But I try and get away as often as I can to do research trips when something really important changes. Last year I was on the brand-new Hong Kong-to-Beijing high-speed train . This year, I’ll be on the new Brussels-to-Vienna sleeping car . I enjoy the journeys, but it does become a bit of a work experience when I’m trying to get the necessary information. My Twitter may show me enjoying a nice glass of red in the seat, but it won’t show me running up and down the train, trying to get photographs and videos of each of the different types of carriage.

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What country has the best trains?

It’s a bit like drinking wine: You don’t have one favorite that you drink all the time, you like different sorts at different times. But certainly, Switzerland has to be up there. Partly because of scenery, and partly because it’s got such a fantastic network. Every train connects with a local train, connects with a bus, and it’s so easy to get around.

What is the country with the hardest trains to book for foreign travelers?

There is India, where just booking a train is a bit of a genuine Indian experience that you couldn’t have from home. It is very intense, busy, with crowded trains, but incredibly rewarding.

Are you seeing new interest from people wanting to minimize their carbon footprint?

Yes, absolutely. When I started back in 2001, if somebody said when they emailed me why they wanted to go by train, they would typically say they have a phobia of flying, or were medically restricted from flying, or particularly liked train travel. What people tell me now is they are fed up with the airport and airline experience, or should I say non-experience, and they want to cut their carbon footprint.

What is your favorite train trip?

It’s the Caledonian sleeper from London to Fort William in the West Highlands of Scotland. First of all, it takes me from where I used to work in central London, right to the West Highlands of Scotland, which are probably the most scenic part of the British Isles. Second, it’s a lovely train, a hotel on rails with private sleeping rooms and a lounge car. And lastly, the experience of waking up, putting the blind up and seeing deer bound away from the train is absolutely fantastic.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation.

Matador Original Series

The Most Scenic and Luxurious Train Rides in the World, According to the Man in Seat 61

W hen we imagine the future of travel, we likely picture robot concierges at hotels, contactless checkpoints at airports, and flying taxis. Train travel, however, probably isn’t top of mind. Traveling by train , especially in the US, feels more like a nod to the past loaded with novelty and nostalgia, but not necessarily efficiency, beauty, or luxury. That’s all changing.

Sure, trains are a classic example of the old cliche: “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” But they’re more than just a scenic alternative to airplanes. As travelers become increasingly conscious of their carbon footprint, train journeys remain the leading option for a more sustainable trip. The emergence of more sleeper trains in Europe , and the expanding US rail network, also points to a revival of train travel.

The state of train travel is so exciting, in fact, that some choose to make a living by riding the rails.

The Man in Seat 61 has turned train travel into his way of life. A former station manager for London’s Charing Cross, London Bridge, and Cannon Street stations, and various other jobs in the rail industry, he now travels the world by train and runs a popular blog detailing his journeys. His blog, The Man in Seat 61, aims to inspire people to forego the cold, uninspiring airport experience for a more scenic and sustainable trip. We spoke to the Man himself to get his insights on the best train rides in the world, and what the future of train travel looks like from his expert point of view.

Matador: So, why do you like trains so much?

Travel isn’t just about a destination, it’s about the journey. When you travel by train and ship you see where you’re going, you’re a participant in the country you’re visiting rather than a mere spectator. [The railway companies] treat you like a human being, with room to move and stretch out, sleep in a bed in your own room, eat in a restaurant.

Do you still fly, or do you stick to trains?

I don’t fly at all within Europe, or once I reach a long-haul destination. I fly long-haul if I have to, maybe every few years from the UK when visiting places such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, or Indonesia.

What do you look for in a good train ride, and what separates a good experience from a bad experience?

Sometimes, a great journey is about the train itself, the comfort of the sleepers, dining facilities, and in some cases even lounges. Sometimes, it’s about the landscape and scenery through which you pass. Sometimes, it’s about the things that happen and people you meet along the way. And sometimes, even a superficially bad experience can be good, like travelling on a third-class slow train from Aswan to Luxor, delayed, hot, dirty and dusty with broken seats and windows. Talking with the locals and helping some school kids with their English homework is something I’ve never forgotten. What a ride!

The real enemy of travel isn’t the possibility of bad experiences, it’s the temptation to forego all and any experience because flying is superficially cheap and easy.

What’s the most scenic route you’ve ever traveled?

Tough one! How does one compare a seven-hour journey through the Swiss Alps on the wonderful narrow-gauge panoramic Bernina Express with the day-long ride through Serbia to the mountains of Montenegro on the spectacular Belgrade-Bar line? Or a 48-hour journey from Chicago to San Francisco on Amtrak’s California Zephyr, across the Nebraska flatlands, over the Mississippi, up into the Rockies, along those Colorado canyons, and into the Sierra Nevada via the infamous Donner Pass? There are so many train rides that are scenic in their own unique way.

What’s the most luxurious train you’ve ever been on?

I got engaged (without planning to, what can I say, that train weaved its very special magic) on board the Venice Simplon Orient Express from London to Venice. But that’s classic 1920s luxury, meaning washbasins in each compartment (there were no en suite toilets and showers in carriages built back then). So, my best, most luxurious train ride has to be South Africa’s superb Blue Train from Cape Town to Pretoria, with windows tinted with real gold to keep down the glare, and even complimentary Montecristo cigars in the bar car. It’s the only train on which I’ve ever had a bath (as opposed to shower) in my private bathroom. Surprisingly, at 50 mph on 3’6″ gauge track the water slopped about much less than you’d think.

Train travel for leisure trips is far more ubiquitous in Europe than in the US. Why do you think this is?

Back in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, America had modern diesels and gleaming stainless steel streamliners with vista-domes while we here in Europe were still building steam engines. What went wrong? The US became the land of the airliner and automobile, and rail was almost abandoned other than (by European standards) a skeleton network. But Amtrak still covers the whole country , and for visitors it’s a godsend. We can travel coast to coast at ground level seeing America up close and personal, without flying over it all and missing everything, or having to drive thousands of miles.

How do you envision sustainability impacting the future of train travel vs. flying?

I’ve seen a real change over the last few years leading up to the pandemic. I first started the blog in 2001, and back then, if someone told me why they were traveling by rail instead of flying from, say, London to Italy, they’d typically say they were afraid of flying, medically restricted from flying, or just knew they particularly liked trains. Now, they say two things in the same breath: They are fed up with the stress of airports and flights and they want to cut their carbon footprint. This has come from the grass roots, certainly not from train operators. It’s now been picked up by the media, and finally politicians are beginning to notice.

In Europe at least, people are starting to avoid flights and switch to rail for increasingly long distances. It’s even led to a resurgence in sleeper trains, where rail can provide a realistic alternative to a flight even for 500-700-mile trips. I expect this will continue. My message, of course, is that in taking a train instead of flying you’re not just doing the planet a favor, you’re doing yourself one!

What’s the best train ride you recommend everyone take at least once in their life?

If you live in the States, ride Amtrak’s California Zephyr between Chicago and San Francisco. Indeed, if you book ahead as little as $200 will get you coast to coast, one of the world’s greatest train trips and one of the world’s greatest travel bargains. Over the years I’ve crossed the US six times by rail, once by road, and this is the most scenic of all Amtrak’s trans-continental routes.

In Europe, ride the Bernina Express from Chur to Tirano. It’s the most scenic of all the Alpine rail routes, and with a train connection from Tirano to Milan it’s the scenic slow route to Italy, too.

When it comes to the future of train travel, what are you most excited about?

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How to book trains in Europe – by rail expert the Man in Seat 61

Follow his advice and your trip will not only be more be eco-friendly and enjoyable than flying, it could be similarly priced, too

I take train not plane within Europe because it’s a better travel experience. But switching to rail can also be the single biggest thing an individual can do to cut their carbon footprint.

Eurostar says its research has found that taking the train instead of the plane from London to Paris cuts CO 2 emissions by 90%. The benefit could be even greater, as CO 2 emitted directly into the upper atmosphere is thought to do between two and three times more damage to the environment than the same quantity emitted at ground level. You can compare the environmental impact of different modes of travel at ecopassenger.org .

So consider the train within Europe and do the planet a favour. You might find you’re doing yourself one, too.

Getting started

To look up train times almost anywhere in Europe, use the very capable online timetable at the German Railways website – ask it for Lisbon to Moscow and you’ll see what I mean.

For a printed timetable to take with you, buy a copy of the European Rail Timetable . Published since 1873, it covers all the major train routes in Europe. The same website also sells an excellent rail map of Europe (£11.99 plus p&p), with high-speed lines in red and scenic routes highlighted in green.

Faster and cheaper than you’d think

A one-hour flight takes up to four hours when check-in and ground transportation is added. Trains run city centre to city centre, some reaching 200mph, with free wifi, power sockets, a cafe-bar and even a proper restaurant car sometimes. If you book in advance you’ll find budget train fares like these: London to Paris (2hr 20min) from £44; London to Amsterdam in (3hr 55min) from £35; Paris to Geneva (3hr 9min) from €29; Paris to Turin (5hr 40min) and Milan (7hr 9min) from €29; Paris to Barcelona (6hr 27min) from €59; Amsterdam to Berlin in (6hr 22min) from €39.90; Berlin to Prague (4hr 28min) from €19.90. Book as early as you can, but you can get these cheap rates even a couple of weeks ahead, depending on the day of the week and month you’re travelling. For cheap Paris-Milan tickets book a month ahead in winter, but ideally two to three months in summer, as it’s very seasonal.

On many occasions I’ve left London on a morning Eurostar to Paris, then caught an afternoon TGV onwards to Geneva, Nice, Milan or Barcelona arriving the same day – no airports, no flights, great scenery and time to myself.

My top tip? Allow an hour or two for lunch at the amazing Le Train Bleu restaurant at Paris Gare de Lyon, serving hungry travellers since 1901.

Further east, Austrian Railways (OBB) has been reviving the fortunes of the once common overnight sleeper with its Nightjet trains . With routes such as Cologne to Vienna, Munich to Rome and Zurich to Berlin from €59 with couchette, €99 in a two-bed sleeper, and €169 in a single room en suite (breakfast included), these overnight trains are a highly attractive option. Take a lunchtime Eurostar from London to Brussels and high-speed train to Cologne, then the Nightjet will get you to Vienna before 9am next morning.

The Thello sleeper to Italy also deserves a mention; use it to get from Paris to Venice from €29 including a couchette in a six-berth compartment. It may save a hotel bill too.

My tip? Trade up to four-berth couchettes for more space, from €45 per person and bring a picnic and bottle of wine for that midnight feast. Nothing beats rolling across the causeway into central Venice, then strolling out of Santa Lucia station to see gondolas and vaporettos right in front of you.

Buying your tickets

Here’s the rub – no single website sells tickets for every European train operator at the cheapest rate. But two websites come close.

Loco2.com was started by two British entrepreneurs who wanted to make booking trains easier. It connects to the French, Spanish, Italian, German and Austrian ticketing systems to sell tickets at the same prices as the operator with the same print-your-own or smartphone-based ticketing. There’s no fee or mark up and everything’s in plain English, making it arguably the easiest place to buy tickets across most of western Europe. Thetrainline.com has similar connectivity and a useful price prediction tool, but now adds a booking fee of around 3% on many journeys.

Even Loco2 doesn’t connect to every operator. The only site selling cheap tickets from Prague to Budapest from €21, Prague to Krakow from €19 or Munich to Prague from €15 is Czech Railways . This also sells one of the best bargain fares in Europe: Brussels to Prague from €21 – but you must click “more options” and “travel via” then specify “via Cheb”!

Similarly, for Budapest to Zagreb from €29 use Hungarian Railways ; for Lisbon to Porto from €15 Portuguese Railways , for Stockholm to Copenhagen from around £20 Swedish Railways .

For international routes the operator’s website for the country where a train starts is the first place to look, with its destination country’s site the next place to check.

If you’re heading to or via Germany, German Railways sell tickets from London to Germany from €59.90, combining Eurostar to Brussels and onwards travel on superb high-speed ICE trains all on one ticket. Book at bahn.de or call DB’s UK office (08718 80 80 66).

Eurostar, German and Austrian railways open bookings up to 180 days ahead, but most other European trains open for sale 90 or sometimes 120 days ahead. Just like flights, you get the cheapest fares by booking in advance, with prices often lower mid-week than on busy Fridays or Sundays.

It can pay to break a longer journey into stages, for example that journey from London to Vienna by Eurostar and Nightjet can be booked using loco2.com for London to Cologne and nightjet.com for Cologne-Vienna. This gives more control – on longer trips you may want to allow more time between trains than journey planners allow.

Rail passes

For a go-as-you-please tour of Europe’s cities, buy an Interrail pass . When InterRail started in 1973 it was solely for young people, but now there are passes for adults, children, youths and seniors.

Interrail gives unlimited travel on all the trains run by the participating national operators all over Europe. For example, a two-month pass, allowing 10 days of travel, costs £362 adult, £278 youth and £326 senior – that’s travel anywhere in Europe for £36 per day. Passes for children up to age 11 are free, when they are accompanied by an adult.

You still need to pay reservation fees for many trains in addition to the pass: Eurostar charges a €30 passholder fare from London to Paris or Brussels, and you can reckon on a €10 fee for each inter-city train ride to, from or within France, Italy, Spain or Sweden, sometimes more. But there are few or no fees to pay within or between Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, the Czech Republic or Hungary, unless you want a couchette or sleeper.

There are also single-country Interrail passes. For Spain it’s worth comparing these with Renfe ’s (Spanish Railways) own Spain Pass and for Switzerland with the SBB’s (Swiss Railways) Swiss Travel Pass .

Organised travel

If you don’t want to go it alone, a number of companies can help. Try Railbookers for customised independent tours, or Great Rail Journeys for escorted group tours. The latter is offering a seven-day Castles and Wildlife of Scotland trip using the new Caledonian Sleeper train and including time at Alladale Wilderness Reserve from £1,595pp. There’s also Rail Discoveries , which has a four-day escorted trip to Bruges from £355pp.

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Train Travel Tips from the Man in Seat 61 (Video)

Like many women in our community, I love trains. In fact, I enjoy traveling by train more than any other form of transportation. I love the conversations that trains encourage, the stunning vistas that they offer and the opportunities for reflection and personal growth that they support.

Over the years, I’ve learned several tricks for finding the best deals on train tickets. I’ve learned to book my adventures months in advance, check for senior discounts and take the scenic route, where possible.

That said, no matter how much my understanding of train travel has grown, it is nothing compared to the encyclopedic knowledge of my guest on today’s edition of the Sixty and Me Show.

Mark Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on train travel. He has taken 100’s of train journeys (probably 1000’s actually!) and he knows every tip and trick for getting the most from your train adventures.

In today’s interview, I asked Mark to share some of his favorite train travel secrets. I hope that they help you to get even more from your next train trip!

What is the Best Way to Buy Train Tickets?

Perhaps not surprisingly, Mark’s answer to this question was, “It depends.”

Many people think that buying train tickets is only possible at the station. This is most definitely not the case.

Mark explains that, in recent years, many train companies have started to offer their tickets months in advance. With a little careful planning, you can often get tickets for 50% off (or more!) just by becoming aware of how far in advance tickets become available.

Another, somewhat surprising, answer to this question is that agencies can often provide cheaper tickets than you can buy directly. This isn’t always the case, but, it makes sense to shop around.

Take the time to check out the prices on the website of the train service in question. Then talk with a travel agency to see if they can give you a better deal.

If you know exactly which countries you want to visit, a pass from Interrail or Eurail can offer you savings.

Experience the Joy of Holiday Trains

Not all trains are designed for commuters. Mark says that there are plenty of specialty trains that offer historical or cultural themes. These trains are like, “cruising on rails,” as he puts it.

Two of his favorite trains in this category are the Venice Simplon Orient Express and the Rocky Mountaineer . Both of these trains are basically hotels on rails.

Embrace the Crazy Side of Train Travel

Like any form of transportation, train travel doesn’t always go to plan. Mark says “that’s ok!” I asked him to tell me about one of the craziest trips he has ever taken. He explains that one of his best trips started out horribly. He jumped on an “awful, falling-to-bits” train from Aswan to Luxor. It cost him $1 and turned out to be a wonderful adventure.

Rolling down the Nile Valley, he met school children who were learning English and had a fascinating conversation with a barman who worked on a local boat. So, don’t worry if things don’t go according to plan. Just embrace the crazy side of train travel and let the good times roll.

What is the best (or craziest) train trip that you ever took? What questions would you like to ask Mark about getting the most from train travel? Please join the conversation now.

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Margaret Manning

Margaret Manning is the founder of Sixty and Me. She is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Margaret is passionate about building dynamic and engaged communities that improve lives and change perceptions. Margaret can be contacted at [email protected]

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An Interview with the Man in Seat 61

Interview with mark smith (the man in seat 61).

If you’ve ever tried to travel between countries by train, then chances are you will have come across the incredible the man in Seat 61 website . For someone like me who tries to avoid flying as much as possible, this site has assisted with many trips over the years, both long and short and should be a go-to resource for any serious traveller.

Below I pose some questions to the site’s founder, Mark Smith.

Steve Rohan (SR): Let’s start off with the most obvious. Can you tell me about the name of your site? On which specific train were you “the man in seat 61” and what was the route?

Mark Smith (MS): I like a seat at a table for two which aligns nicely with the window – no pillars in the middle of my view please! So a quick look at Eurostar’s seat plan gave me seat 61 in cars 7, 8 11 or 12 (on the original Eurostar trains). It then became a tradition to treat myself to first class and choose seat 61 when I left London for anywhere special – to Morocco via Paris and Madrid, or Kiev via Berlin and Warsaw, or even Tokyo via Moscow and Vladivostok.

SR: What inspired you to create Seat 61 and a website detailing how to travel anywhere in the world by train?

MS: I had nothing to read on the commuter train home from work, so went into WH Smiths at Marylebone station and found a teach yourself book about html, the language basic webpages are written in. I successfully got a webpage online, and for me the subject was obvious: I wanted to fill the gap between how easy it is to take the train from the UK to Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, wherever, and how difficult it had become to find anyone in the travel industry or even rail industry who would tell you how to do it.

SR: What is the longest you have ever spent on a train (Moscow to Irkutsk is my longest, 86 hours).

MS: 7 days, Moscow to Vladivostok. Even I was going a little stir crazy at the end. 7 days of Siberian birch trees – a very different experience to 6 days on the Moscow-Beijing express, which has varied Siberian , Mongolian and Chinese scenery, and a party atmosphere on board amongst the many westerners, Chinese and Russians. On the Moscow-Vladivostok Rossiya I was the only westerner on board until two professors from Alabama got on at Irkutsk.

SR: What was the most memorable journey you have taken?

MS: London to Verona on the Venice Simplon Orient Express. I only took it to research the train for the website, as they had a 25% discount at the end of the season. Took my then girlfriend, she’d never been to Italy, and I thought it would save me having to pay the single supplement. I got more than I bargained for. We’d only been going out for 6 months, but that train weaved its very special magic and we got engaged somewhere in the snow-swept Brenner Pass. Here I am 15 years later with a wife, two small kids, two cats, one small dog and one large mortgage. Powerful magic indeed.

Incredible Rail Journeys

SR: What was the most difficult journey you have undertaken?

MS: None have been particularly difficult. But the afternoon Moulmein to Rangoon train ended up leaving hours late, got progressively later, then got sidelined at Bago for faster trains to pass, and eventually it became an overnight train rather than daytime train, reaching Rangoon at 7am! But the incomparable Strand Hotel (Rangoon’s Raffles) gave us a suite from 8am and let us keep it till our departure at 4pm next day, so all was not lost!

SR: What was the nicest/most comfortable train you have ever been on?

MS: That Venice Simplon Orient Express. Those 1920s sleeping-cars are superb. But being 1920s, there are no en suites. Back then, Sunday night was bath night, whether you needed it or not…

SR: What was the worst train you have ever been on?

MS: A filthy dusty Egyptian 2nd & 3rd class slow train from Aswan to Luxor. Windows broken, doors hanging off. But all local life was on board, such as school children who asked me to read passages from their English textbooks, and the Nile scenery was fabulous. Worst train, but one of my best most memorable trips.

SR: Do you fly much, or always take an overland/sea route when travelling?

MS: I never fly within the UK or even within Europe. I take a plane where there’s little alternative, such as for a week in Vietnam or three weeks in Indonesia.

SR: Can you tell me why train travel is preferable to flying for you?

MS: Because I love travel – and travel means the journey as well as the destination, like mountaineering means the climb, not just standing on summits. By train you see where you’re going, and can move around, sleep in a bed, eat in a restaurant. It’s all about the experience.

SR: You’ve recently visited China (not for the first time if I recall). How was your trip here?

MS: I’ve been to China several times, the first by Trans Siberian Railway from London in 1991. The technological advances since then have been vast, not least the amazing scale of the growing high-speed rail network.

SR: Finally, what plans do you have for the future?

MS: There are very few countries with relevant rail systems left to add, so it’s really about continual improvement – more photos, more info, adding station guides, covering trains such as the Blue Train or Canadian in more detail. The site tends to force me to revisit popular places I’ve already been to (before I started seat61 ) to get decent photos and info, when I’d rather go to more obscure places which from a website point of view generate little demand. Oh well!

Want to know more about travelling without flying? See below for some interesting articles about rail travel:

Xining to Lhasa – The highest Railway in the world!

How to Travel the Silk Road – How to travel overland from England to China

About the author: Steve Rohan is a writer from Essex, England. He has traveled to over 60 countries, lived in Armenia, China and Hong Kong, and is now living the digital nomad life on the road.

Steve prefers “slow travel” and has covered much of the world by train, bus and boat. He has been interviewed multiple times by the BBC and recently featured in the documentary Scariest Places in the World . See the About page for more info.

Where I am now: Yerevan, Armenia 🇦🇲

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Ask The Man in Seat 61 anything: Mark Smith answers your questions on holidaying by train

I n recent years, the travel industry has anticipated a shift towards more environmentally conscious travel choices among holidaymakers.

However, reports from various firms indicate that consumer behaviour has yet to align with this expectation.

Despite widespread awareness of the environmental impact of air travel, factors such as the continued affordability of flights, limited annual leave for longer trips, and a preference for convenience and cost-effectiveness still dominate traveller decision-making.

However, an increasing number are actively seeking out travel options that eschew air travel altogether, favouring ground transport such as trains or buses.

For those who haven’t dipped their toe into the slow travel waters yet it can be daunting to know where to start.

This is where Mark Smith, better known as The Man in Seat 61, comes in. Mark is devoted to making train travel simple and his website, seat61.com , is a comprehensive catalogue of rail journeys across Europe and beyond.

More than that, it describes the practicalities of travel – visa information, costs, how to store your bike and where to buy tickets – alongside what you can expect to experience on the journey itself.

Mark will be on hand to answer all your slow travel questions in an ‘ Ask Me Anything ’ event on May 24 at 12pm. He will be answering live in the comments section below.

Register to submit your question in the comments box under this article . If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments section to leave your question. For a full guide on how to comment click here.

Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they may be hidden until Mark joins the conversation to answer them.

If you have more questions you can sign up to Simon Calder’s weekly Ask Me Anything email, exclusively for Independent Premium subscribers.

All you need to do to sign up is subscribe to Independent Premium, which you can do here .

When you subscribe you will be asked to select the newsletters you would like to receive - make sure you pick Ask Me Anything to receive Simon’s weekly email.

If you’re already subscribed to Independent Premium and want to check out our full offering of Premium and free newsletters click here.

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International Edition

Rail Travel, and the Man in Seat 61

• Post author By pkk
• Post date April 5, 2013
• 2 Comments on Rail Travel, and the Man in Seat 61

Train travel, like cruises, are sometimes trips unto themselves–with the journey as much an experience as the destination.  The most famous of these is perhaps the Trans-Siberian Railway, which crosses all of Asia on a continuous eight-day journey.  Connections to the Chinese rails, at one end, and the European rail network, on the other, mean that you can travel all the way from London to Saigon, on the rails, starting by crossing the Chunnel on the Eurostar , across Europe on a whole range of networks and then from Moscow to Beijing, and then from Beijing to the Vietnamese railway on the reliable  Chinese rail system .

You can search the label “train” on my blog  for some information on traveling by train, but the site I usually recommend for international rail travel is The Man in Seat Sixty-One , one of the internet’s very best travel sites, which includes an amazing amount of detail on train systems around the world, including helpful pictures of car layouts, and a surprising number of schedules and fares.  The site is named for his favorite seat on Eurostar first class.  Many thanks to Mark Smith for creating and maintaining such an amazing repository of travel information!

2 replies on “Rail Travel, and the Man in Seat 61”

Hi !! Happy to see your post. am from South India. can you please tell me the tourist places in North India which you feel that Great one.

Paul write bad things about malaysia because he cannot being naked freely in the public. When he could not ask his girlfriend to do the blowjob he was tense and frustrated. Furthermore liquor price is expensive. Drugs is strongly prohibited. The worst thing he could not fuck local girls who strongly uphold he religious values. So tensed that he only could masturbate in the hotel. So he writes bsd things about malaysia.

Comments are closed.

The Man In Seat 61 on global train travel, hidden subsidies, and Burmese numerals

Sylvia Bishop: Hello, and welcome to Browser Interviews. Today I am overexcited to be here with Mark Smith, The Man in Seat 61 - and his dog Pip, if I heard that right?

Mark Smith: Yeah!

Sylvia Bishop: Mark, thank you so much for coming on. To start with, for our readers who don’t know Seat 61, can you give us a quick overview of what this wonderful project is?

Mark Smith: Well, it’s to help people with train travel. If you want to travel from the UK to just about anywhere in Europe, or around Europe, or indeed by train and ferry around the world, it’s the place to start and have a look at what the options are.

Sylvia Bishop: Yes. I did a quick check and I think you cover every continent except Antarctica, which is reasonable!

Mark Smith: There aren’t many trains there...

Sylvia Bishop: No - I think it’s safe to say you’ve covered all the trains in Antarctica, so well done.

My first question is just: how? How do you go about gathering all that information? What is the day in the life of the man in Seat 61?

Mark Smith: Well, intel comes in through all different sources.

So I’ve got Google Alerts set up for different train-related terms. We’ve got the railway magazines that give news about the rail industry in Europe and the UK and around the world.

And of course, I get lots of feedback from travellers. If something changes or something has happened, you can usually bet that I get an email fairly quickly and can change it on the site.

And that’s really important - become more important actually - getting feedback from travellers from the ground. Because I suddenly realised I cannot get everywhere myself. I tried but it’s not going to happen, is it? So it’s really great to get help from travellers who use Seat 61.

Sylvia Bishop: Well, that’s one of my questions... how much of the year do you now spend on trains, doing on-the-ground research?

Mark Smith: Not enough. I would love to do more. But I’ve got a young family and I have to take care of them. So I get out when I can, and usually try to cram in the maximum amount – I might be going for one particular reason but you can bet that I will take an interesting route and cram in some research along the way.

Sylvia Bishop: And the language barrier? A friend of mine is a Japanologist and she was very impressed by your section on Japanese trains, she said she wouldn’t know where to begin finding that information in the English language. Do you find that a barrier?

Mark Smith: No, not really. A lot of these websites have an English version, and for ones that don’t, there’s Google Translate.

Then of course I have found myself decoding websites in Vietnamese where the English ones weren’t very clear... and indeed I’ve tried Burmese... yes, I got to grips with Burmese numerals when they were the only information I had – because Burmese railways don’t have a website. So yes, I was decoding photographs of time table posters in Burmese to make sure I had the right information on my train travel in Burma page. That was quite fun.

Sylvia Bishop: It brings me to a question I have, as a complete layman about trains. I was looking at the website and you had a long, long, long section on Europe, and a long, long, long section on Asia - and then all of Latin America is over here at this link!

For the uninitiated, what’s the global picture of train travel? Where do we love to travel by train - where are railroads few and far between?

Mark Smith: Well, you've hit on it. South America is not the place for train travel. It has got some very interesting but very disjointed odd railways here and there but nothing that you would call a network, whereas Asia has got a sort of network in a lot of countries.

Europe of course has got a network. Europe and Asia are linked by the Trans-Siberian Railway. Even North America, in the age of the airline and the car, has got a rail network from coast to coast in both the United States and Canada. But South America is the weakest continent.

Africa is not too bad. Southern Africa has a network, although it’s not as quite as coherent a network as it used to be way back in colonial times.

Sylvia Bishop: Do you have any sense of the driving factors there, what makes for a country that falls in love with trains?

Mark Smith: Oh, I think the factors are many and various. That’s a whole subject in itself!

Sylvia Bishop: Sure! OK, so that’s the picture for train travel now . You’ve been running this website for - how long?

Mark Smith: Oh gosh, 20 years.

Sylvia Bishop: 20 years!

Mark Smith: It started in 2001. That’s when I first registered the domain name.

Sylvia Bishop: And have you seen any big changes in how we travel by train over that time?

Mark Smith: Well, the biggest change: when I set it up, if somebody told me why they were traveling by train between the UK and Italy or Spain or Portugal or wherever it was, they would typically say they had a phobia of flying, or they knew they particularly liked trains, or had a medical restriction against flying. That's a bigger minority than people think.

But that has changed, and what they say now is two things - in the same breath - they want to cut their carbon footprint, and they want a nicer, more pleasant alternative to the airport and airline experience. Somehow those two things go together and it has been really noticeable.

And although it has hit the media with Greta Thunberg and so forth in the last year or two, this has been going on for the last four, five or even six years. It hasn’t been a sudden thing.

And it’s a grassroots thing, because it certainly hasn’t come from the travel industry, and certainly not from the rail industry itself. I sometimes wonder whether the rail industry is prepared for all this extra business that they’re going to get.

Sylvia Bishop: Well, that begins to answer my follow-up, which is whether you’re seeing this change in demand impacting the train services being provided? Or have we not reached that point yet?

Mark Smith: Well, in Europe, the problem is that the rail service is quite fragmented. It was a network, and it still is on paper, but you need different tickets for different trains from different operators and different websites. That’s the biggest problem, and part of what I do is help people find their way through that jungle of tickets and websites to make it a good journey.

But one thing that is noticeable: sleeper trains, which have had a very hard time since budget airlines came on the scene - and of course high speed daytime trains - they are making a bit of a comeback.

And as people get more aware of the climate issue and get more fed up with airports and airlines, the distance they’re willing to travel by train increases. So there was a time when three hours was the magic figure. If you could get your train journey down to three hours, you could compete with air travel on a level playing field - because think about it, it’s a half an hour to the airport, hour check in, hour flight, half an hour into the city. That’s three hours. Same as a three-hour train journey.

But since 9/11 with all the extra airport security, that has gone up to four or even five hours - and also because you can use a train productively, with Wi-Fi and plugging your laptop in. I think for leisure travel at least, the climate issue is pushing that boundary even further, shifting the graph even further to the right if you like, of journey time against market share.

And sleeper trains are a way you can cover really long distances by train time-effectively. Leaving in the evening, arrive in the morning. It takes less time out of your schedule than four or five hours of faffing around with airport links and check-ins and flights.

So we’re seeing some new start-ups. We’re expecting to get a Brussels and Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague sleeper train back next year. We’re getting a Paris to Salzburg and Vienna sleeper train back next month and indeed an Amsterdam to Zurich sleeper train by next month. So this is good news.

Sylvia Bishop: It’s great news!

I took the sleeper train from Budapest to Bucharest on your recommendation, and it was one of the best travel experiences I’ve had. I think I wrote to you at the time...

I was working on a children’s book that takes place on that journey; and there has been a bit of a spate of children’s books exploring the idea of trains and sleeper trains recently. But for anyone who has not read books aimed at nine-year-olds or been on a sleeper train, what is the experience? Can you paint a picture? Because I was expecting to sort of sit in my train seat and have a miserable time but that was not at all…

Mark Smith: Well, there are ordinary seats, and if you want to sit in one and have a miserable time, I suppose you can! It’s the cheapest option.

But the thing to do is to book either a couchette, which is a flat padded bunk with a rug and a pillow in a four-berth or six-berth shared compartment, and that’s a cheap way of traveling safely locked in a compartment, lying down and sleeping.

Or you can book your own sleeper. One, two or three beds, a wash basin. Sometimes a shower, an ensuite shower and toilet. Sometimes a shower at the end of the corridor. The sleepers have properly made-up beds that convert to a little private sitting room for daytime use and that’s lovely.

I mean, lying in bed between crisp, clean sheets, reading a good book by the glow of your berth light, the steel wheel swishes on steel rail beneath you... That’s a lovely way to travel. And leaving in the evening, arriving in the morning - well, it takes no time at all and it feels really quick, and yet you can cover 400, 500, 600 miles in a night.

Sylvia Bishop: I was brought an orange juice in the morning like I was in a fancy hotel! And it was waking up to a totally different view to the view you’ve gone to sleep at - I woke up in Transylvania and was surrounded by the mountains - and the magic of that moment, when you realise how far you’ve gone in your sleep....

Mark Smith: That’s a lovely journey! And people think you can’t see anything from sleeper trains, but actually on many routes you can when you wake up.

On that particular one, Budapest to Bucharest, you wake up in Transylvania, heading into the Carpathian Mountains which are really Alpine-like. They’re way to the east of the Alps but that’s the impression they give. Fantastic journey.

Sylvia Bishop: Oh, it was stunning. That brings me to what was going to be a closing question, but let’s have it now. What’s your favourite train journey - or is that like choosing between children?

Mark Smith: I have a list!

Yes. I mean my favourite of all is actually really close to home. It’s the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Fort William, and there are various reasons for this. The first is the train itself, a little hotel on rails with a club car. A few haggis, tatties and neeps and a wee dram before you retire to bed. Your own private room, some with ensuite share and toilet; they’ve got some rooms with double beds now on that sleeper train.

The second is the sheer practicality of being able to go to sleep as you head away from the big smoke, London, and then wake up in the middle of nowhere on the West Highland Line surrounded by spectacular Scottish scenery on your way to Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis. That’s a fantastic journey and it’s not far from home.

Sylvia Bishop: Yes - yes please!

I think we’re doing a pretty good job of persuading anyone that train travel is the way to go. Most people I know now who don’t use it, it’s normally that cost is a barrier, in the bizarre world we live in, compared to flying - especially if they’re booking last minute.

Is there anything we can do about that, or is train transport just more expensive and would need massive subsidising …?

Mark Smith: Well, oh, there are several answers to this!

First, at this point, trains have their cheap fares too. So on the new Lumo train from London to Edinburgh, you get fares from £14.90, you can get a Eurostar ticket from London to Paris from £52  one way or £78 return - and then once you’re in Paris, you can go to Switzerland from 29 euros or Milan from 29 euros or Barcelona from 39 euros. So the cheap fares are there if you know where to look, and book in the right place.

The second thing is that it’s not a level playing field. Airlines pay absolutely no tax on their aviation fuel. Aviation is a very fuel-thirsty businesses. Up to 30 percent of an airline’s cost can be fuel, and letting them off the tax is a massive hidden subsidy.

So trains of course have to pay their energy costs in full with duty and tax on top. It really is a hidden subsidy into the most polluting method.

The last question, the last issue of course is that trains pretty much compete on price for a point to point journey. But if you’re going say London to Malaga, that’s a London to Paris ticket, plus a Paris to Barcelona ticket, plus a Barcelona to Seville ticket. So your daisy chain tickets and that’s – each fare competes with a flight for that sector. But when you add three up, it might cost a bit more.

But the key thing is if you look in advance as you would with flights, it’s affordable.

Sylvia Bishop: Great, thank you. I have a pet theory that British people are shyer of traveling by train because our train systems are expensive, and they don't realise how wonderful it’s going to be on the continent. Does that seem fair? Do you have a sense of which nationalities travel by train more?

Mark Smith: You know, everyone slags off their own rail network. The Americans slag off Amtrack which I love. Crossing the states by train is superb. The Germans, believe it or not, complain about Deutsche Bahn...

Sylvia Bishop: But it's so good!

Mark Smith: ... when we think they’re wonderful. And we think our trains are awful when Americans come here and think they’re fantastic.

Now it could be that you’re comparing the commuter train that you travel to work on it every day with the gleaming intercity train that you travel on in a different country. And it could be that you remember the one time it was late on your commuter train to work, whereas when you travel in Europe, you travel once or twice, it’s likely to be on time. So you think it’s always on time.

So you compare it that way. But, yeah, that’s a sort of truism worldwide I think.

Sylvia Bishop: Interesting. Do you have a favourite country to travel by train in? What is objectively, according to Man in Seat 61, the best?

Mark Smith: What’s not to like about Switzerland, with its trains that run like clockwork through fabulous mountain scenery?

But I mentioned the States, and going coast to coast from New York to San Francisco on the Lake Shore Limited changing at Chicago onto the California Zephyr... That is as a three-night journey, three days. But what a journey, 3000 miles through some absolutely superb scenery in the Rockies, in the Colorado Canyons, in the buttes of Utah, the Sierra Nevada in California. And you can do it from around $200, so it need not be expensive.

Sylvia Bishop: That almost brings me to my wrapping up question. But I’ve got to ask, since he's here, can Pip come with you on these journeys? Are there dog-friendly carriages?

Mark Smith: He regularly goes to the Netherlands on the ferry. You can take him on trains in the UK, he's been on trains in the UK. Eurostar don't take dogs. So if he goes abroad, he's got to go on the ferry.

Sylvia Bishop: Aw, OK. More trains for dogs: that is my takeaway campaign from this. But if you could have one wish for train travel... we talked about the aviation fuel competition, or the disjointed rail services in some continents... what do you think would improve our rail experience?

Mark Smith: A single booking system for Europe that would do everything and has all the information in it.

I’m going to add a second one, because I’m greedy like that. Passenger rights whereby your connections are protected, not just with a through ticket, but if you need to make a through journey on separate tickets from separate operators, which these days you often do.

Sylvia Bishop: Yes, because it is stressful when your train is getting delayed and delayed, and you are desperately trying to work out what the next train from your other operator is and whether anyone will wait for you.

Mark Smith: Yeah! Normally they will help you out. But it would be good to have a legal right.

Sylvia Bishop: I had to make a very close connection on that journey, the one that involved the sleeper - it was actually London through to Bucharest, and I remember there was a very close connection where your website said it’s such a famously close connection that they will quite often hold that one for you. Which did actually happen for us. So that was very charming, that they waited.

Mark Smith: That was good!

Sylvia Bishop: Yes! In conclusion, train people are good people, but more trains for dogs.

Thank you Mark. This has been just a delight. Thank you so much for your website - as far as I know it’s a one of a kind, and it makes so much train travel possible.

Mark Smith: Thank you. Pleasure to be on.

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