Harry's Blog

The most dramatic train journey I ever took was in 1989. Alas it was at night-time so I've no idea of the view - but it was a thrilling experience none-the less.

I was on a school trip to the Soviet Union. We had spent four days in Leningrad (as it was then) and were going to spend three days in Moscow. We were to travel on a sleeper train between the trwo great cities.

Now I have to say that there were some shennanigans by this group of 16 year olds. We bought a lot of beer in a tourist shop and got pretty smashed without the teachers knowing. But that's by the by...back to the journey.

I'd never been on a sleeper train before. And I've also never been on a train with a corridor down one side and sleeper compartments - reminded me of train carriages from old movies.

It was a wonderful journey. But the surprising thing happened when we arrived. This was the end of this particular line and the train would be returning to Leningrad. You'd think after such a journey that the train would wait a while.

But no, teachers were banging on the doors waking us up. The train was going to leave almost immediately whether we were on it or not. So we all frantically got dressed, and threw our bags out of the window onto the platform. Some people even ended up losing belongings on the train.

So there were were stood on a platform at half five in the morning in Moscow. We all had dressed very hurridly. I was wearing trainers, no socks, jeans, no underwear, a denim jacket, no shirt. And we started walking down the platform.

I couldn't even see the station through the gentle thin snow. We were so far down a platform. It's the longest platform I've ever seen. I was later told they were so long and wide so tanks could be embarked onto trains in the event of war.

In the distance was a red light, at first a pale smudge but as we got closer it became clearer. We were bitterly cold, none of use wearing much in the way of clothing. I don't know how long we walked but it seemed like agony. And as we got closer to the red light we saw that it was a digital clock and thermometre. IT read a temperature of sixteen below freezing.

I have never been so glad to climb onto a bus in my life, it wasn't heated, but compared to outside it was paradise.