This has been a holiday of trains – trams in Hong Kong and Paris (both the normal and mountain-climbing types), a metro system in every city, overground trains in London and Hong Kong, and finally the Eurostar to whisk us through the Chunnel. We’ve also now added what I think is the jewel in the crown for this trip – the fabled TGV.
Most of you know that I’m a bit of a geek. What you may not know is that I had a small train set when I was younger (much younger, primary school), and it was a fully functioning model of a TGV. In real life, the Train à Grande Vitesse is one of the pride and joys of the French transport system – it’s a train that has hit a top speed of over 570km/h during testing, and can average close to 300km/h over a journey. Make no mistake, this is one seriously quick mode of transport; think Sydney-Melbourne in three hours. By train. In business-class comfort. Riding on the TGV was once upon a time a childhood dream, which was slowly buried under the weight of reality, and the small fact that France was on the other side of the planet...
Once we got to Paris, we made a decision to go to Reims for the day, and explore the Champagne region (I’ll make Chath blog about that later). After having battled the bookings website and various printers to get tickets, we finally turned up at the station, to be greeted by a sleek, aerodynamic engine, attached to 14 carriages to transport its passengers and cargo to Luxembourg via Reims. On we got, kicking people out of our seats (for some reason they thought they could freeload on our tickets, grrr...) then settled in for the ride. Reims is only 127km away, which in TGV terms would take us under 40 minutes. Suddenly, my boyhood dreams were reawakened, as I realised – I was finally going on a TGV!
The trip started off pretty inauspiciously – we rolled out of the station exactly as promised, then stopped, 100m from the station, Cityrail-style. There was an incomprehensible French announcement, then we started rolling again. Gradually the train built up speed, and after a while we were cracking along at a decent pace across the French countryside. Admittedly we were going quickly, but compared to the Eurostar it didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It was starting to look like my TGV dream would remain unfulfilled.
And then.
And then the engines started to whine just a little bit louder. And then the countryside started to become indistinguishable. And then the TGV girded its loins, bellowed almighty and catapulted its carriages into hyperspace (and yes I’m exaggerating just a little bit here). But it was seriously, insanely fast – this was much quicker than the Eurostar, and the sense of tearing through the countryside at an obscene rate was palpable. And you couldn’t rip the smile off my face for the world, as one of my childhood dreams came true.
Once we’d finished at Reims (itself a lovely town), we were waiting for the return train to take us back to Paris. While waiting at the station, a few other TGVs tore through without stopping – one of them flew through at what must have been top speed; it sounded like the end of the world. And once again, you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face for the world.
Goes to show – sometimes, the journey is as important as the destination.
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