How Luxurious Train Travel Is Interesting
Luxury train travel may be old or new. In China there have been attempts to introduce high speed trains from Beijing to Shanghai. They travel at speeds in excess of three hundred kilometers per hour on air cushions that eliminate the clanking sound of rails. Cushioned seats and cushioned movement at high speed may equate to luxury especially if high quality personal attention comes with the price of a ticket.
New luxury trains tend to focus on streamlined engines which seem to epitomize speed. However there are certain hallmarks of luxury that cannot be avoided. One is space and the other is attention. Both of these are expensive and customers may be loathe to pay up when their purpose is simply to get from one point to another speedily. However, personal attention from charming hosts and hostesses is worthwhile for those who can afford it easily, as is illustrated by the popularity of business class airline seats.
When it comes to restored luxury trains the concerns are quite different. People booked on a period carriage look forward with interest to recapturing experiences of the past whilst enjoying the present at the same time. There interest is in leisure, comfort and intellectual stimulation.
Although horses drew carriages along wooden rails as far back as the sixteenth century it was not until the nineteenth century that steam locomotives began to run along iron rails. The age of steam began in the colonial era.
In a strange quirk of history small European countries at this time achieved such predominance over the world due to the technology of the time that they were briefly able to take over vast countries like India and rule them from a small island half a world away. The situation was too absurd to last long but for the period that it did last the superiority of the colonial powers had to be maintained by pretense. Traveling about in stylish superiority was one way of keeping up appearances.
A train would consist of a number of different carriages in those days. Some were luxurious and others definitely not. The English thought that they should travel in first class carriages When Mahatma Ghandi, a British educated lawyer, tried to board a first class carriage he was ejected on account of being Indian.
This small incident led eventually to the withdrawal of the British from India. Ghandi went back to India and organized a campaign against the British. His method of passive resistance proved more effective than armed struggle and history was made as the British withdrew with as much pomp and dignity as possible.
Tourists to India and South Africa can now travel on period carriages that replicate the sights sounds and textures of luxury train travel in colonial times. In addition to experiencing current pleasures they may relive the experience of colonial train travel, and enjoy a sense of history.
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