Post by @quixoticgeek@social.v.st

RE: https://cupoftea.social/@moof/117389653220629440

It was discombobulating in 2007 when I stood in Utrecht Centraal in the early evening and listened to the announcements for the next few trains. Prague, Zurich, München, Warsaw, Moscow. Every single one of these I could have grab a ticket from the counter run down stairs and hopped on.

Like @moof I grew up on an island (specifically the 2nd one mentioned). And the trains where I grew up went to London, or to Norwich. That was it. Then I went to uni, and my local station went to...

1/n

0 Boosts

0 Likes

SewBlue

@sewblue@sfba.social 56 min. ago

@quixoticgeek @moof It's easy for Americans like me to forget just how important this freedom is. We are physically so big it is hard for us to scale just how small the distances are in Europe and the UK, how restrictive borders can be. For us, similar distances will cross states, not countries.

That said, I was completely disappointed with the lack of fast rail between Paris and Rome, for an up coming vacation. That surprised me. But the rest of our trip will be via rail.

Den of Earth

@DenOfEarth@mas.to 6 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek @moof
Obligatory
https://mas.to/@DenOfEarth/117360402555973184

Kathy Murdoch

@kapellosaur@mstdn.social 7 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek @moof And the Chunnel felt revolutionary at the time. Shame we picked Calais to dig it to, rather than, say, Rotterdam. We've now got the same problem as Spain, that is to say: SNCF

Jez Higgins

@jezhiggins@mastodon.me.uk 7 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek I bet some of those trains went to Spooner Row, but I can understand why that doesn't make the list.

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 7 hr. ago

@jezhiggins nope. Your attempt to geolocate where I grew up is a miss...

Jez Higgins

@jezhiggins@mastodon.me.uk 7 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek Whaaaaaatattstatsttsts

Makes no sense. The line from Norway goes to Thetford, Cambridge, and London - you know this. And there's nothing on the other side of Norwich. That's just a fact.

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 8 hr. ago

London, or to Ramsgate. You had two choices up the line or down the line. From the Uni station I could go a few stops to Ashford and get a train there to Paris or Brussels. But that requires all sorts of security faff, and more importantly was so ludicrously expensive unless booked months in advance for a ticket constrained to a single departure. Leaving the country was something you did very very intentionally. It was done in a very limited and specific way.
2/n

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 8 hr. ago

Then I'm stood in Utrecht Centraal listening to those announcements. I realised that from where I was Vladivostok and Beijing were a single change away. By train. The world shrank in an instant. The geographic compression was profound.

Growing up on an island the border was the sea. It's a very intentional thing to cross. Now in the Netherlands I've been on bike rides where the only reason I realised I had been in Germany was I came to a "Welcome to the Netherlands" sign and the fietspad

3/n

Kim

@kim@fedi.social 3 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st Yeah, and in those days even Canterbury to London wasn't a trivial journey: Real risk of hypothermia, tweenagers singing Craig David for three hours and, on a bad day, having to change at Faversham.

Alex makes autism fun

@WizardOfDocs@wandering.shop 5 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek Beijing! How long does that take‽

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 5 hr. ago

@WizardOfDocs well over a week. I don't think it works any more as the direct train from NL to Moscow doesn't run. There's a person on fedi who did Thailand to France by train earlier this year.

Smol Entity

@smol_entity@cubhub.social 7 hr. ago

@quixoticgeek Beijing in one transfer?

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 6 hr. ago

@smol_entity in those days there was a direct night train to Moscow. And from Moscow the trans Siberian railway to china.

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 8 hr. ago

Improved dramatically. If you don't live in Schengen, it's hard to comprehend just how vague a concept of a border can be. The Vennbahn is a great example. The trackbed, which is now a cycle path, is Belgium, but either side is Germany. Have a bike accident and the insurance claim is complicated. The accident happens in Belgium, but you landed in Germany. With the end of roaming charges within the EU it's become even less of a thing to cross a border. I remember once having a phone call.

4/n

Quixoticgeek

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st 8 hr. ago

"where are you? I'm honestly not sure what country I'm in" (Germany it turns out, Belgium was 50m further west).

Within the EU borders feel... Weird now. I still stand in the station and there's announcements for far flung places, and I've now travelled to many of them by train. (To Kolari in the North, and Lisbon in the west, to Tvarditsa in the east, and Bari in the South.). Hoping on a train across a border is just an everyday activity.

And yet. For other things. They still cause issues
5/n

1+ more replies