A Culture of Train Travel

Posted by admin on October 29, 2010

Aside from the obvious and somewhat cliched cultural differences between American and British citizens (the widely held view that Americans have a lack of irony and British people have bad teeth etc) there are other differences between us which are occasionally overlooked. It is notable for instance that the majority of Americans have never left their own country (only 22 % of American citizens hold a passport) and indeed even within America itself the means by which they will travel from place to place is slightly different from ours. It is fairly obvious that because America is such a vast country leaving it takes considerably more effort. In contrast here in the UK we can get on a train at King’s Cross and be in France quicker than it would us to take to get to Cornwall. Here we reach another difference, namely the culture of train travel. Since the privatisation of National Rail in the UK it could be argued that train travel is less effective than it once was but nevertheless the railway system is well utilised in this country and of course the tube system in London is absolutely invaluable for many Londoners for whom travelling through the capital in a car often takes longer than it would to use the tube. In America The Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (Joseph Szabo) gave a lecture in April of this year in which he stated that there will come a time when Americans will view high speed railways as a valid alternative to getting in to a car or plane. Train travel in the UK has found many ways in which to make journeys more enjoyable for commuters and holiday makers alike. Virgin trains in particular has been rather innovative, initially by installing a “radio"channel which customers could plug their headphones in to on the arm of the seat and now Virgin have gone a step further on certain carriages by installing TV screens to the back of the seats so that customers can have all the luxuries of home on their journey. Having said that watching the TV screen is expensive and the quality of picture can vary. On a recent trip to Scotland I purchased my own Portable DVD player using comet.co.uk discount vouchers which is my preferred way to make train travel enjoyable. Needless to say I’m sure it won’t be too long before American companies catch on to all of the commercial opportunities that the rail service has to offer.

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