Tag Archives: railway

The painter and poet Edward Lear and a railway in Greece

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Reading about a place sometimes makes one want to visit it. Such was the case with a picturesque valley in northern Greece, about which I had read in one of the travel journals written by Edward Lear (1812-1888). Here is what I wrote about the place that Lear had described when I visited it in the early 1970s with my PhD supervisor Robert Harkness and his wife Margaret. What follows is a slightly modified excerpt from my book “Between Olympus and Aegean”.

Halfway between Larissa and Platamon – both in northern Greece – the main road winds high above a deep gorge between the slopes of Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa. Passing through this place, the Vale of Tempe, our Land Rover laden with terracotta urns recently purchased in Larissa, brings to mind John Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, which he wrote in 1819 and includes the words:

“What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?”

It was not through Keats’ words that I first heard of this place, but it was those of Edward Lear. In his “Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania”, published in 1851, he wrote in his entry for the 9th of September 1848:

“To see the classic vale of Tempe, the sacred mountain of Athos and the romantic Yannina have always been among my wishes; and I had long ago determined on making, previously to returning to England, a large collection of sketches illustrative of the landscape of Greece.”

And so, it also became my wish to see the vale. I was already familiar with Lear’s sketches that I had seen in a huge album in one of the libraries at University College London. My friends, Robert and Margaret, with whom I was travelling in Greece, gave me a 19th century engraving based on one of his Balkan sketches for my 21st birthday. Lear’s drawings are at least as good as his nonsense rhymes, for which he is well known. 

            The main road between Larissa and Platamon ran high above Tempe. Even from its edge one could see little or nothing of the gorge far below it, and certainly not what Lear would have been able to see when he visited it. One afternoon, Robert and Margaret kindly drove me to the southern end of the Vale of Tempe, and left me by the roadside. Then, they drove to its northern end, where they said that they would wait for me as I tried to retrace Lear’s footsteps along the depths of the gorge.

            When my friends drove away, I looked around to see whether I could find a track or path that ran along the base of the gorge. I saw two rustic looking men sitting high on a slope above me. I climbed up to them and with a combination of miming, which involved pointing at my feet, and repeating the word ‘Tempe’ I managed to make them understand that I wanted to walk along the gorge. They pointed up at the railway track high above us, and I understood that I was to walk along this.

            Soon after I reached the single tracked railway, I heard a train approaching me from the south. I stepped aside to allow the Athens to Munich Express to rumble past me. When this long train had sped ahead, I followed it at my own pace. After a short distance the track entered a cutting between two walls of rock. When I was halfway along this, a diesel engine came hurtling towards me. In the nick of time, I flattened myself against the rocky wall to avoid being mowed down. I continued forward, somewhat shaken. Soon after the track emerged from the cutting, I saw the entrance to a tunnel not far ahead of me. It was dark; its far end was not visible. After my near miss in the cutting, I decided that I would not enter the tunnel.

            I stood on the track near to the tunnel’s entrance and looked around. To one side there was a steep slope leading upwards. On the other, there was a slightly less steeply inclined slope leading towards the narrow base of the gorge. Cautiously I made my way down the slippery slope, grabbing hold of shrubs to slow down my descent. Soon, I reached a level path running just above a stream that ran along the base of the gorge.  It was, I realised, the bed of a long since demolished railway track. This was the railway that my informants had intended that I follow. The railway track that I had been following was its modern replacement. Suddenly I was walking in an idyllic landscape that must have hardly changed since Lear visited it.

            After a while, I reached what must have once been a railway station, but was now a place, maybe with religious connections, where visitors were able to obtain refreshments and to drink from a spring that issued nearby. I have since learnt that this place was called Agia Paraskevi and that the old railway station was opened in 1910. The suspension bridge close to this, which I crossed, was built in about 1960, and was replaced a few years ago.

Soon after leaving this delightful place, I reached the car park at the northern end of the gorge, where Robert and Margaret were waiting for me. They listened with great interest as I related my adventures including my narrow escape in the railway cutting.

[My book “Between Olympus and Aegean” is available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Between-Olympus-Aegean-Adam-Yamey/dp/1291882685/ ].  About the book:

Ants, bacon, collagen, and chlorine. These are not the first words that usually spring to mind when thinking about summers in Greece. The holidays that Adam Yamey spent in this country in the 1970s and 1980s with the professor and his wife were far from ordinary. This book provides an affectionate portrait of two remarkable people with whom the author spent many unconventional vacations. It also describes how the author travelled with them through a Europe which has undergone many transformations since these trips were made. Adam’s book is richly illustrated with his own photographs, many of them showing places that time has changed beyond recognition.

Slow train to Darjeeling

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MY MOTHER’S FATHER, who died young in the early 1930s, was Mayor of Barkly East, a small town in the Eastern Cape (South Africa). He was the driving force in bringing the railway over the mountains from Lady Grey to Barkly East. This was the most expensive (in terms of cost per mile) stretch of railway ever built in South Africa. It included a series of switchback stretches to allow the trains to ascend or descend the steep mountain slopes. Another mountain railway with switchbacks can be found on India’s West Bengal. The narrow gauge railway links New Jalpaiguri in the plains with Darjeeling high up in the mountains. We travelled on this line on December 2019. Here is what I wrote soon after the ride.

The author and the train

Today we travelled on a narrow gauge mountain railway with at least 5 switchbacks. It is the so called ‘Toy Train’ that runs incredibly slowly between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling which is in the foothills of the Himalayas, more than 2000 metres above sea level.

We took almost two hours to travel the first about three miles. This was mainly because of a seemingly interminable wait for a signal man to arrive to allow our train to cross a river near Siliguri. Soon after we began moving, we passed tea gardens and began our several hour slow ascent towards Kurseong, Ghum, and Darjeeling.

The train follows the route of NH55, crossing over it frequently at unguarded level crossings. The serpentine course of the railway is designed to lengthen its route in order to reduce the gradients that need to be tackled.

The wheels squeal and shriek as the carriages wind around the tight curves of the tracks. The diesel engine’s horn blasts very frequently to clear the path for the train.

The views from the train are spectacular. The carriages pass extremely close to buildings, plants along the side of the track, and steep drops. Passing through towns on the route, sometimes we were so close to shops beside the track that it would have been easy to snatch goods from them. Leafy branches sprung through the open carriage windows, shedding leaves and flowers.

The flora along the route was very varied. We passed a multitude of colourful flowers including magnificently exuberant poinsettias.

Because of our slow start we travelled the last three and a half hours in darkness as the sun set long before we arrived at our destination. We arrived over three hours late.

Our enjoyment of this superb railway journey was enhanced by having conversations with a businessman from Bangalore and a couple from Lincolnshire in the UK.

Even though it is very slow, a trip on the Toy Train is thoroughly recommendable.

When we arrived at Darjeeling, it was dark and extremely cold. There were few people at the station apart from our fellow passengers. There were no taxis or autorickshaws, and we had no clue as to where our guest house was located, and how to reach it. Luckily, we had our host’s telephone number, and we rung him. The kind fellow, a Nepalese Buddhist cleric as we discovered later, came in his car to fetch us.

Although our host’s family were very hospitable, we would not stay at that place again. The main problem was that it could only be accessed from the street by a steep outdoor staircase without a handrail. One false step, and one of us might have fallen from the steps and then down the orecipitous slope into the ravine far below us.

I have yet to revisit Darjeeling, which I loved, but next time, I will choose a warmer time of year.

Once a railway station in Kerala  but now a viewpoint for tourists

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TOP STATION IS about 20 miles from Munnar (in Kerala) and 5500 feet above sea level.  Today, it is a popular tourist attraction, providing visitors with magnificent views of several ranges of hills. The place gets its name because it was the highest station on a railway that no longer exists.

 

View from Top Station

Between 1902 and 1908, a monorail system used for transporting locally harvested tea was built to connect Munnar with Top Station. In 1908, this was replaced by a narrow-gauge railway  the Kundala Valley Railway. Tea was transported to Top Station, where it was loaded onto a ropeway that carried it down 3 miles to a village, Kottagudi, in Tamil Nadu.  From there, it was transported to other parts of India. Sadly, the railway was washed away during a severe flood in 1924, and was never replaced.

 

Top Station was not only important as a railway Terminus, but also as a place on a road that was improved by the British  in 1942, when it was feared that Chennai, which had been bombed, might be invaded by the Japanese.

 

Following the bombing, which caused little damage, people fled from Chennai, the wealthy to hill station,  and the less well-known off to villages and towns far from the east coast. Meanwhile,  the British built what became known as the Escape Road, which ran across the high mountains between Kodaikanal and Munnar. This 50 mile road linked roads from Madras with roads from Munnar to Kochi (Cochin), from where troops could leave India if necessary.

 

The Escape Road, which reaches 8140 feet was the highest road in India South of the Himalayas.  The road remained in use until 1990. After this date, it fell into disused because neither Tamil Nadu nor Kerala were prepared to pay for its upkeep.

 

As a result of the closing of the former Escape Road,  travellers between Munnar and Kodaikanal have to travel on other roads. The present road route is 105 miles instead of  50 miles taken by the disused road.

  Top Station is well worth visiting. The views from over the precipice are amazing. To see them, one needs to elbow aside the numerous people posing for photographs or taking ‘selfies’. Unfortunately,  the viewpoint itself is covered with litter left by tourists.

The superfast express train from Ahmedabad to Bhuj

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THE EXPRESS TRAIN, Indian Railways number 22903 (the Bhuj AC Superfast Express), runs between Bombay and Bhuj (in the Kutch district of Gujarat). On its way, it stops at Ahmedabad Junction Station at 630 am. To catch the train, we arrived at Ahmedabad Junction at about 530 am – I always prefer being early at the departure point of a train, aeroplane, bus,  etc.

 

It was dark as our autorickshaw drove speedily along the empty streets of central Ahmedabad. The sun only rises after 7 am in the west of India.

 

Ahmedabad Junction Station

The well-lit station platforms were covered with rows of people wrapped in blankets, sleeping on the floor. The sight of these sleepers reminded me of the images that Henry Moore made of people sleeping on the platforms in London’s deep Underground stations during WW2. Of course, the people sleeping in Ahmedabad’s Station were awaiting trains, not sheltering from bombs dropped by the German’s Luftwaffe.

 

These sleepers were not disturbed by the endless series of train announcements, each of them were made in three languages: Hindi, English,  and Gujarati. One of them that was repeated at regular intervals informed those who were listening that the Shalimar Superfast Express (it runs between Kolkata and Bombay) was running 12 hours and 50 minutes late. Fortunately, our train 22903, pulled into platform 3 almost exactly on time.

 

We had reserved places in the first class, air-conditioned carriage, and had a coupé (compartment) to ourselves. Although comfortable,  it was a rather spartan little cabin. I believe that first-class rail travel in India is aimed at those who wish to travel secluded from the ‘madding crowd’. Frankly, I prefer travelling in a carriage in which one can see and, sometimes,  interact with one’s fellow travellers and the endless stream of vendors, who move up and down the trains in India.

 

The six-hour journey from Ahmedabad to Bhuj is through terrain as flat as in the Netherlands,  but much dustier. All along the route we passed factories, both small and large, many with chimneys emitting smoke. For the first half of the journey,  we travelled past well-tended fields in which crops were growing. After crossing into Kutch, we passed numerous vast water features containg seawater that was being dried to produce salt. Every now and then, white, conical mounds of salt could be seen. The train runs for a long way parallel to a main highway in Kutch.  This connects Kutch and its important port Kandla with the rest of India. An endless stream of large trucks moves along this road.

 

At Gandidham in Kutch, the train’s engine was changed. We began moving in a different direction as we travelled along the stretch of rail track between Gandidham and Bhuj, where we disembarked.  Outside the station there was a sea of men offering to drive us in taxis, jeeps, and autorickshaws.

 

Eventually, our driver met us, and drove us through the hilly, almost arid hills between Bhuj and Kutch Mandvi, where we were going to stay with my wife’s cousins.

 

Even though train 22903 traverses terrain that few would regard as picturesque, I always enjoy long land (rather than air trips) journeys through  the countryside of India.

Coffee in a railway signal cabin

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THE TRAINS THAT used to run into Folkestone Harbour station have not done so for many years. The station has been restored and repurposed as a pleasant, tasteful leisure amenity.

The signal box that used to regulate rail traffic in and out of the station still stands. It is now used as a café. With fine views of the harbour and Folkestone town, the signal box now contains equipment for making coffees and seats for customers. Apart from being an interesting old building, the old signal box contains the levers that used to operate the points within the station and on the bridge across the small harbour that connects it to the main land.

The café is not only housed in an original building, but also the coffee made there is above average in quality.

Residences close to the railway tracks in north London

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LIVING NEAR BUSY railway lines can be a noisy experience. The American-born architect Neave Brown (1929-2018), who worked for the London Borough of Camden, understood this when he designed a housing estate that is situated beside a curve of the railway between Kilburn High Road and South Hampstead stations. Six parallel tracks carry trains regulatly past this site. So, living alongside these tracks could be far from peaceful.

Side of the block facing the railway tracks

Neave Brown designed a public housing estate next to this curve. Called the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate, it was designed in the Brutalist style of architecture, but in such a way that the buildings themselves muffle the sounds coming from the railway tracks. How he did this is well explained in a Wikipedia article:

“The higher, eight-story block directly adjacent to the railway line is organised in the form of a ziggurat, and acts as a noise barrier that blocks the noise of the trains from reaching the interior portion of the site, and its foundations rest on rubber pads that eliminate vibration.”

This step-like construction is both impressive and sculptural. Far from being inhuman as many Brutalist constructions can be, the estate, which is rich in vegetation, looks like a pleasant place to live. This contrasts with the pairs of tower blocks that stand on the other side of the tracks. As one of its residents, the architect Lefkos Kyriacou wrote (http://alexandraandainsworth.org/history/):

“… Alexandra Road still retains its cinematic wonder but having suffered the problems that have blighted much of Britain’s post-war social housing it is emerging from the shadows, not only as a valuable part of our national heritage but as a viable example of how mass housing can succeed.”

What is more, and this is a measure of its success, I have read that Neave Brown’s estate has suffered far less from vandalism than almost all of Camden’s other residential estates.

Lloyd George on the railway tracks at Paddington station

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IT IS NOT UNCOMMON to find that transport vehicles such as trains, boats, and aeroplanes, are given names. They are often named to honour noteworthy people. While strolling along platform 1 at London’s Paddington station today (21st July 2024), I noticed a train bearing the name ‘Megan Lloyd George CH’. You will, I hope, excuse my ignorance when I tell you that although I have heard of David Lloyd George (1863-1945), a former Prime Minister, Megan Lloyd George was not a name with which I am familiar. I wondered why the Great Western Railway (‘GWR’) had chosen to put her name on one of its trains. When I got home, I found out why.

Megan Lloyd George (1902-1966) was the youngest child of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George. She was born in Criccieth, Wales. Until she was four years old, she could only speak in Welsh. Between the ages of 8 and 20, she spent much of her life in the Prime Minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street. It is not surprising that the young lady became interested in politics. With some help from her father, Megan became the Liberal party candidate for the Welsh constituency of Anglesey, and in May 1929, she was elected as its Member of Parliament (‘MP’). She became the first woman MP from Wales. She was re-elected in the general elections of 1931 and 1935.

According to a biography (https://liberalhistory.org.uk/history/lloyd-george-megan/), Megan accompanied her father:

“… on his visit to Hitler in 1936, and opposed the policy of appeasement, urging him to press for Chamberlain’s resignation in May 1940.”

She served in Parliament throughout WW2, and was re-elected in 1945 and 1950, but with greatly reduced majorities. In 1952, she lost her seat.

For various political reasons, Megan and several other members of her party left the Liberal Party and joined the Labour Party in April 1955. In 1957, she became the Labour MP for Carmarthenshire, with a majority of 3000 votes. Always a popular figure, she took Carmarthenshire again in 1966, with a majority of 9000. By then, she was suffering from cancer, and died soon after the election and a few days after having been awarded the Companion of Honour (‘CH’) by Prime Minister Harold Wilson. In 2016, she was nominated as one of the ‘50 Greatest Welsh Men and Women of All Time’ (www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/50-greatest-welsh-men-women-11431779).

GWR trains run from Paddington to the west of England and parts of Wales including its capital, Cardiff. So, we should not be surprised to find Megan’s name on one of them. Having said that, I am not sure where the train with her name on it was heading as it left platform 1.

No longer can you travel overland from this station to Leipzig or Marseilles

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THE FIRST BLACKFRIARS railway station was opened in 1886. This station has been replaced by a 21st century station that now serves trains of the Thameslink network, which connects places north of London with places south of the city – no further north than Peterborough, and no further south than Brighton. Originally, when it first began serving passengers in the 19th century, trains carried people to overseas destinations including Leipzig, Naples, St Petersburg, and Marseilles.

The ticket hall of the current Blackfriars Thameslink station contains a reminder of the days when passengers departed for places much further afield than Brighton and Peterborough. It is a section of the original station’s facade, on which a list of destinations once reachable from the station is inscribed . The list includes many places on the European mainland as well as places in southeast London and Kent, through which travellers heading towards foreign lands had to pass.

I do not recall the old Blackfriars station, but the current one is an elegant example of modern architecture. What is particularly nice is that the platforms are on a bridge spanning the Thames. While waiting for a train, passengers can enjoy splendid views up and down the river.

An unusual Victorian funicular still working by the sea

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STEEP CLIFFS OVERLOOK Hastings Old Town and the beach immediately east of it. Although there are roads that lead from these parts of Hastings to the rest of the town on top of the cliffs, a more interesting way of travelling between the bottom and the top of the cliffs is by using either the East Hill Lift or the older West Hill Lift. Both are funiculars. We travelled up and down on the West Hill Lift, which travels between the west end of the Old Town and the ruins of Hastings Castle high above on the top of the cliff.

The West Hill Lift (‘WHL’) is 500 feet long and ascends a height of 170 feet, a gradient of 33% (1 in 3). It comprises two tracks, each 6 feet in gauge. It is powered by electricity. The two carriages, which can each hold up to 16 people are raided and lowered along the tracks by steel cables attached to them. They are equipped with a mechanism that automatically applies brakes to the wheels should the cable break. I did not know this when we made a trip up and down the cliff in the creaky old carriages, which are those that were supplied when the system was originally installed.

The construction of the WHL began in 1899 (the year that the Eiffel Tower was built). But it was only completed in 1891, when the cable winders were operated by a gas-powered engine. The funicular system was built by Messrs A H Holme & C W King of Liverpool, who later built the Snowdon Mountain Railway. In 1894, after the Hastings Lift Company went ‘bust’, the WHL was taken over by the Hastings Passenger Lift Company. This company ran it until 1947, when the Lift was bought by Hastings Borough Council. In 1924, the gas engine was replaced by a diesel engine, which was later replaced by an electric motor (in 1971).

Despite having been refurbished in 1991, the WLF still operates with its original 1890s carriages. Admission to these is via an old-fashioned metal turnstile operated by the ticket seller. Apart from looking archaic, a special feature of the WHL is that most of it travels in a brick-lined tunnel burrowed through the cliff. Its neighbour, the East Hill Lift, runs through an uncovered cleft cut in the cliffs. Apparently, few other funiculars in Britain were built, like the WHL, to run through tunnels, and those that were, are no longer in use.

Although Hastings is not nearly as elegant as other British seaside towns such as Eastbourne and Brighton, it is an intriguing place rich in places of historical and visual interest. The existence of the superb Hastings Contemporary art gallery and the two working funiculars adds to the fascination of the place. It is not a place to be ‘sniffed at’.