Grrr on a Train

As I mentioned yesterday, I like travelling by train. I'm not sure I will be an as-enthusiastic passenger on Elon Musk's Hyperloop, where speed sacrifices views and you get to your destination in a long seamless tube at supersonic speeds, but then again the Hyperloop is still very much in the experimental stage. I may not be on the platform when the first one pulls (surges? launches? vrooms?) out of its station.

But your everyday common-ou-jardin railway has been around for way over a hundred years, and has metamorphosed only slightly since the early 19th century. Well, I say 'only slightly' only lightly; obviously there have been major improvements in comfort, speed, and the elimination of smelly smoke entering carriages, with smut lodging in passengers' eyes. But in general its experimental days are over. We still travel along two parallel steel rails, stop and leave from stations with platforms, and still get overcharged for food and drink, much of which is tasteless.

So here we were enjoying the last stop in conventional rail travel's evolution, travelling on a high speed TGV from Paris to Oulx in northern Italy. I had gleefully booked this journey months ago having discovered that we could travel first class at discount fares. I should have been more worried on later discovering that there's also a Business Class, which - unlike on aircraft - is actually superior to First. Go figure.

I had selected two side-by-side seats for daughter Catherine and me, backs to the engine so that we would have a better chance of surviving a high-speed crash - one can't be too careful - and looked forward to a bit of luxury as we traversed France and into Italy to begin our skiing holiday.

I hadn't done my homework diligently enough, and I have to relate now that my best-laid plans had come uncoupled and were shunted into a siding.

When we trundled down platform 21 at Gare de Lyon in Paris to find Coach 12, we discovered that seats 43 and 44 were indeed side-by-side, but adjacent to a pillar between two windows. Check out our view in the photo. The lovely colours of steel grey, the blind pulled down by the person in front of us to block a sliver of view through her window, and what are we left with? A postage-stamp glimpse of the French countryside. And I never did like stamp collecting.

I had envisaged luxurious seats, panoramic windows, and a buffet car, maybe even a proper dining car. Non, Monsieur. What we got instead was a grumpy train bloke with a trolley, who first of all handed out menus, and then after a few minutes returned asking what it was we had choisi.

I pointed to the a la carte section and requested a simple pizza and small bottle of vin blanc. But non. The train man had been to the school of sharp intake of breath and sad shaking of the head. 'Non. Pas possible,' he announced, and folding the menu so that it excluded the a la carte section he prodded it back at me with instructions that I was to select from the fixed menu seulement.

Catherine sensibly had made her lunch earlier so didn't need anything. Reluctantly I chose a ham and cheese baguette and was graciously allowed a petit bouteille of J P Chenet's finest Chardonnay. I proffered my bank card which was declined immediately by the machine (though it's worked everywhere else until now - maybe I've been scammed). This wouldn't happen on Virgin Trains in England, because food and drinks are included in the First Class ticket price. I think Branson could teach them a thing or two in France.

I waved a 50 Euro note and again the School de sharp intake de breath et tete-shaking graduate put on his best performance and refused the currency. As a student he'd obviously got straight-As; his performance was faultless.

As was mine. I collected together exactly 12 Euros and threw it at him. He certainly didn't get a tip.

Grumpily I accepted my baguette and Chardonnay and turned to stare out at the lovely grey steel of the window pillar. Grrr.