Zuge Endet Hier
In the morning I repack my rucksack for the flight back to England; I rationalise the contents and discard some of the unused things I have carried around central Europe for the last eleven weeks, wondering why I didn’t do so sooner. I leave my battered copy of Fatherland on the table next to some unwanted shower gel and an airline-prohibited aerosol can, and place a stack of small Forint coins in front of these for the maid. As I eat a breakfast of omelette and coffee, the owner of the Panzio strikes up a stilted conversation about the town and my travel plans; he speaks a few words of English and is fluent in Hungarian; but my limping and limited German is his preference. He tells me he is from Hamburg, and I suddenly realise my mistake in leaving a particular book in my room; but there is nothing I can do about this: I have settled my bill and deposited the keys. My only hope is that the maid does not discover her treasures before I have finished breakfast and reached the safety of the station.
My last train is the 11.32 to Budapest Keleti Palyuadvar. It is a typical Saturday in Hungary: the shops are winding down for the weekend and the bustle of last minute shoppers is only countered by the relaxed atmosphere of the cafes and bars, the unhurried stroll back from the river front market. I walk across the Platz for the last time, cross the square, and pause at the booth outside the station to buy water for the journey; the steps into the station are already host to shoppers returning to the countryside, their bulging plastic bags gathered around them as they sit patiently on the freezing stone for what might be a wait of several hours. The train is standing at platform 3 behind a V43 electric in the InterCity colours of blue and grey, distinguishing it from the utilitarian flat blue of the locally based engines. One of the four second class coaches is an old 1st class that has been downgraded but not changed, and I find a comfortable single window seat with armrests and enough room to stretch my legs out; the train heating, although welcome after the insidious cold of the platform, is set at full and within a few minutes I am peeling off layers of outer clothing, trying to acclimatise to my new environment. There are few other passengers, and only a handful of people join the train at each stop; one or two backpackers and a small family share my coach, sometimes a local gets on for a couple of stops, but few people seem to want to travel to Budapest on a Saturday morning. I arrive at Keleti and drink an espresso at a booth beneath the statues guarding entrance. There is a bustling energy to the Palyaudvar that never seems to dissipate, regardless of the day or the hour; the improbably distant destinations, the excitement, anticipation, and despair, the beginnings and endings – the possibilities – reverberate around the spectacular train shed. The epitome of a railway terminus: history, architecture, romance, and the promise of adventure. The striking new Berlin Hauptbahnhof, New York’s Grand Central station, or Paris’ Gare Du Nord are inspiring places to begin or end a journey, and each have some of these ingredients - but never all together; this is why Budapest Keleti Palyuadvar is my favourite station and a kind of spiritual home for all that I love about railways.
I walk down to the Metro and find that M2 to Deak Ter – where I need to connect to M3 - is closed for rebuilding. I take tram 24 to Nagyvarad Ter instead, and take M3 to the end of the line at Kobanya-Kispest and the sprawling train-bus-tram interchange. A long, wide, enclosed footbridge spans the tracks and bus station, lined with booths and shops, groups of seedy looking men drinking Borok and vodka in the dark corners and recesses. The wind drives waves of sleet across the dirty windows that overlook the car park below and rattles the corrugated steel walls. I find a bar halfway across the bridge and drink a Borsodi while I wait for the airport bus; the windows are blanked out, and a heavy curtain hangs over the door as if to shield passers-by from witnessing some sordid encounter. A portable gas heater battles against the draughts that seem to come from everywhere at once, and I can feel the cold seeping through the bridge’s floor: a less amenable venue for a farewell drink I cannot imagine. The bus drops me across the main road from the airport, the sleet turned to snow, the wind howling down the dual carriageway as I weave through the traffic to terminal one. I check in and go through to departures without any delays or searches, my passport barely even looked at. When my flight is called I walk downstairs to the WC and smoke a cigarette; there is a group of probably 10 people hovering around the door smoking; most of them are airport staff and security guards, and the air is thick enough to make my eyes water. I reach the gate as the last of the passengers walk out to the 737 and find a window seat over the wings. There’s a twenty minute delay as the ground crew de-ice the aircraft, then a quick push-back and taxi, the engines throttling to full power just before the jets nose swings out of the taxiway and lines up with the runway. Half an hour later the captain announces we are cruising at 11 kilometres above the Czech border with an outside air temperature of -63oC, something it’s impossible to relate with the warm aircraft cabin or cruising round the Balaton shore behind an old M41 diesel on a hot and sunny afternoon.
My sister is waiting at Luton to meet me. The airport is functional, stark and unwelcoming. It has a temporary, pre-fabricated feel, as if the thin partition internal walls might be moved at any moment; disembarking passengers are funnelled through walkways that shake beneath their feet and herded into cordoned pens for passport control before being spat out into the arrivals hall as quickly as possible. We drive through the grimy Luton suburbs and out into the unseen English landscape; the darkened fields and silhouetted trees are indefinably different from those of central Europe; the country feels distinctly different even though it is so familiar and clearly unchanged. Or perhaps it is me that is no longer the same, an outside observer of a strange country: could I really have changed so much in 77 days?
We arrive in the Cotswolds late in the evening; I go to bed in the peace of rural England, my map folded and stowed, no train times jotted in the back page of my notebook for the morning. An owl calls from the trees outside my window, and I imagine I hear the distant blast of an M41 or M62s air horns somewhere far away in the night - but its just the wind. The journey is over.
My last train is the 11.32 to Budapest Keleti Palyuadvar. It is a typical Saturday in Hungary: the shops are winding down for the weekend and the bustle of last minute shoppers is only countered by the relaxed atmosphere of the cafes and bars, the unhurried stroll back from the river front market. I walk across the Platz for the last time, cross the square, and pause at the booth outside the station to buy water for the journey; the steps into the station are already host to shoppers returning to the countryside, their bulging plastic bags gathered around them as they sit patiently on the freezing stone for what might be a wait of several hours. The train is standing at platform 3 behind a V43 electric in the InterCity colours of blue and grey, distinguishing it from the utilitarian flat blue of the locally based engines. One of the four second class coaches is an old 1st class that has been downgraded but not changed, and I find a comfortable single window seat with armrests and enough room to stretch my legs out; the train heating, although welcome after the insidious cold of the platform, is set at full and within a few minutes I am peeling off layers of outer clothing, trying to acclimatise to my new environment. There are few other passengers, and only a handful of people join the train at each stop; one or two backpackers and a small family share my coach, sometimes a local gets on for a couple of stops, but few people seem to want to travel to Budapest on a Saturday morning. I arrive at Keleti and drink an espresso at a booth beneath the statues guarding entrance. There is a bustling energy to the Palyaudvar that never seems to dissipate, regardless of the day or the hour; the improbably distant destinations, the excitement, anticipation, and despair, the beginnings and endings – the possibilities – reverberate around the spectacular train shed. The epitome of a railway terminus: history, architecture, romance, and the promise of adventure. The striking new Berlin Hauptbahnhof, New York’s Grand Central station, or Paris’ Gare Du Nord are inspiring places to begin or end a journey, and each have some of these ingredients - but never all together; this is why Budapest Keleti Palyuadvar is my favourite station and a kind of spiritual home for all that I love about railways.
I walk down to the Metro and find that M2 to Deak Ter – where I need to connect to M3 - is closed for rebuilding. I take tram 24 to Nagyvarad Ter instead, and take M3 to the end of the line at Kobanya-Kispest and the sprawling train-bus-tram interchange. A long, wide, enclosed footbridge spans the tracks and bus station, lined with booths and shops, groups of seedy looking men drinking Borok and vodka in the dark corners and recesses. The wind drives waves of sleet across the dirty windows that overlook the car park below and rattles the corrugated steel walls. I find a bar halfway across the bridge and drink a Borsodi while I wait for the airport bus; the windows are blanked out, and a heavy curtain hangs over the door as if to shield passers-by from witnessing some sordid encounter. A portable gas heater battles against the draughts that seem to come from everywhere at once, and I can feel the cold seeping through the bridge’s floor: a less amenable venue for a farewell drink I cannot imagine. The bus drops me across the main road from the airport, the sleet turned to snow, the wind howling down the dual carriageway as I weave through the traffic to terminal one. I check in and go through to departures without any delays or searches, my passport barely even looked at. When my flight is called I walk downstairs to the WC and smoke a cigarette; there is a group of probably 10 people hovering around the door smoking; most of them are airport staff and security guards, and the air is thick enough to make my eyes water. I reach the gate as the last of the passengers walk out to the 737 and find a window seat over the wings. There’s a twenty minute delay as the ground crew de-ice the aircraft, then a quick push-back and taxi, the engines throttling to full power just before the jets nose swings out of the taxiway and lines up with the runway. Half an hour later the captain announces we are cruising at 11 kilometres above the Czech border with an outside air temperature of -63oC, something it’s impossible to relate with the warm aircraft cabin or cruising round the Balaton shore behind an old M41 diesel on a hot and sunny afternoon.
My sister is waiting at Luton to meet me. The airport is functional, stark and unwelcoming. It has a temporary, pre-fabricated feel, as if the thin partition internal walls might be moved at any moment; disembarking passengers are funnelled through walkways that shake beneath their feet and herded into cordoned pens for passport control before being spat out into the arrivals hall as quickly as possible. We drive through the grimy Luton suburbs and out into the unseen English landscape; the darkened fields and silhouetted trees are indefinably different from those of central Europe; the country feels distinctly different even though it is so familiar and clearly unchanged. Or perhaps it is me that is no longer the same, an outside observer of a strange country: could I really have changed so much in 77 days?
We arrive in the Cotswolds late in the evening; I go to bed in the peace of rural England, my map folded and stowed, no train times jotted in the back page of my notebook for the morning. An owl calls from the trees outside my window, and I imagine I hear the distant blast of an M41 or M62s air horns somewhere far away in the night - but its just the wind. The journey is over.
posted by Paul O'Halloran at 12:31 PM
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