You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'first class' category.
Vilnius to Saint Petersburg
The train stood a clear 9ft tall and a million miles long as we climbed from the subterranean locker room to the platform at Vilnius station. This was the train I had been waiting for. Well, I mean, we’d waited for plenty of trains up till now but for me this was the kind of train which would make this whole experience. Making a carriage your home for however long you have to is a real skill on the transiberian. This relatively short stint, approximately 14 hours, would decide if I could enjoy this kind of ordeal or if we would wilt under the pressure of close confinement.
The silver and red colours made the train look like a sleak 50’s American relic. The roof of all the cars, stretching far off into the Lithuanian night as far as the eye could see, were snow capped and the walls plastered thick with ice. Each wagons chimney belching thick black soot into the purple evening sky as the deep roar of the diesel engines echoed around the empty station.
Each carriage has it’s own attendant and ours was a large cosy looking woman. She beckoned us forward and asked each of us our nationality in turn. She quickly scanned the tickets and passports and showed us aboard. Our backpacks barely fitted through the tiny train corridors as we brushed past the business end of the coach and fairly ran towards the seats assigned us for the night. After some initial excited wrong turns we found our places were the very first births as we entered the train.
On the left a four birth open cabin shared space with a slim corridor and two extra bunks aligned with the small passage way. We were lying in the corridor beds.
All the blankets for the wagon (grey and red heavy wool items ideal for the subzero climate) were piled on my bed. The upper bunk of the two corridor births. We had to wait for the other travelers to collect them before we could fully move in. Me and James sat hunched beneath the expertly engineered platform of my bed and slowly acclimatised our selves with our much anticipated surroundings.
The four birth cabin opposite housed a Lithuanian couple with enough luggage to fill a shop, we concluded they were either emigrating or off on an extended holiday in Russia. The boarder guards would enjoy quizzing them. Also here was a middle aged woman who seemed intent on sleeping the entire journey. We moved all the blankets obstructing our bunks onto the upper bed on the sleepy woman’s side of the four birth, and made up our beds. Crisp linen folded carefully over firm but fair benches and the luxurious wool blankets made for a very inviting bed.
Behind us the wagons offices and toilet were expertly nestled in the smallest possible spaces, allowing only a small private sleeping cabin for the original attendant. She never seemed to use this room, instead preferring to march the length of the carriage serving tea and coffee. In there was also a younger Russian version who would tend to these duties beyond the boarder. She would display a very different, very Russian style of service, all scorn and annoyance.
Me and James walked the train, as we tend to do now once we get settled. We marvelled at everything; the WC’s at either end of our wagon, the smoking areas beyond both and the open link way at the very ends of each coach, with their noise and growing frost and disturbing view down to the speeding rails below. Our journey took us from our 2nd class cabin through the seated class and into first. The carriage housing the restaurant was small and filled with tables and chairs all and conversation. The whole train was buzzing with communication between strangers and it felt warm and homely. First class was quiet and sterile and we attracted some strange looks on our way back to our beds.
I watched the very nice and kind woman in the next compartment answer her grand daughters questions about the foreigners sleeping in the beds next door and was rocked to sleep by the motion of the train.
A boarder patrol guard woke me with a grab of my leg and asked for my passport. I handed it over and fell back to sleep. I had sat through long boarder crossings before and knew there was nothing to be done but enjoy the time in my warm bunk. I was woke again to receive my documents back and then again inside Russia where a guard would search all the baggage storage bins for stowaways using an ancient military lamp as a guide. The crossing wasn’t half as distressing as we had read it could be.
I love this train, the warmth, the sense of belonging, the smells and the adventure, the water boiler and the attendants (even the moody ones hvae their good points). 2nd sleeper class is defiantly a first class way to travel.
click for larger images
Meetings and Eurostars
After a while waiting for some sign that my fellow travelers had already begun their own journey’s I decide to attempt to contact them myself. No response from any number stored in my emergency phone and I started to panic again. I tried to be more useful and fill my time by picking up the train tickets, which turned out not to be possible without Jay’s bank card. While doing this i realised that our train was delayed and all of a sudden I was in Manchester again waiting but going nowhere. Just then as I sat down cold, grey and dejected James rung. We were to meet outside WHSmiths. I walked, again, the entire length of the station to find him. He was 100 metres behind where I started. His mum was really nice and she took she took some great hyped up ‘lets go!’ type action snaps. Around 5 minutes later Jay rang. He had arrived back from his aborted first attempt out and was now outside WHSmiths. Sarah was next after meeting and saying some final goodbyes to her mum and our holiday could begin properly. Jay handed out some presents for me from Katie and Doug, Alex and Kavita. They were amazing – I only opened them later but I was so blown away by the gifts that I just had to mention it.
We checked into the Eurostar lounge where the temperature was through the roof. I suggested we relax having just made it through passport control and dropped our bags when the call was made to proceed to the platform. The queue which I thought gave us twenty minutes wasn’t for our train and when we realised we had to scoop our bags up and burst past ticket check. At first we ran as little joke, we couldn’t miss the first train! When we realised we were heading in the wrong direction down the platform the joke stopped being funny and we sprinted to our coach and jumped on board. For some reason we had been bumped up to first class, our fellow travelers didn’t seem to happy with it as we puffed and panted and pushed our massive bags into our seats. The hostess on board wasn’t best pleased either. Still, the service was worth all the downward looks. Free champagne, free wine and beer, free food and over sized chairs. A great way to begin our trip.
click for larger image
