'What's the attraction of trains for you?' I manage to ask during a pause. 'How did you get into trains?'
'I think it was because my parents liked to move about. I was lucky. They had a Morris Minor and they liked going places, stopping along the way to take a look – to see trains or ships or whatever. Not sticking about in a boarding house in Bournemouth for a couple of weeks. For me it's all about movement.' She shifts tack, hardly taking a breath. 'Old transport: old trolleybuses, trams, ocean liners, steam trains. I like things old, technically basic, with good lines and well made, like how things used to be. Some of these ships these days, made in Belgian shipbuilding yards, they're just assembly kits. They don't look like ships. They're floating apartment blocks. They've lost their sheen.'
Charlie, who is a member of the Locomotive Club of Great Britain and who attends events held by the Railway and Canal Historical Society, categorises the different types of rail enthusiast that she knows of: 'First of all, there are "track bashers". They just like to cover every bit of track. They don't really care what's carrying them – the trains. Then, of course, you have "haulage bashers". They collect as much traction as possible.'
I ask her what she means by this.
'Mode of traction,' she says.
I ask her again what she means.
'Motive power,' she says, sounding exasperated.
'I'm still unsure,' I say.
'The type of engine!' she cries. 'Then you have the "number crunchers". They've started as kids at the end of the platform. Some of them cheat, if they're with someone else who has seen the number but they haven't. They've just had the number read to them. There's a morality about these things. The idea is to finish off a series: to see every example of a particular class of a train engine. Some people also take down carriage numbers, too.'
She regards me closely to make sure I'm getting what she's saying. 'You've also got "footplate riders". They like to go up in the cab of a steam train. Actually it's wonderful. You get different views when you're with the driver and the fireman. I was in one for forty minutes in Australia. It was at night. Brilliant. I was just lucky they let me.'
Charlie stops her 'rail enthusiast' briefing, for a fraction of a second. She is really quite animated, gesticulating wildly. Her mind leaps about as though a thought not told that instant might disappear for ever. 'It's not just trains. It's canals, buses, trams, trains carrying breakdown cranes, plinth trains.' These, she tells me when I ask, are trains put on plinths like the old steam train we saw in Pristina. 'Coal-tipping wagons, narrow-gauge railways, rail museums. It's very important to see the museums. Then you've got gauge, signals, railway models, miniature railways in gardens. Oh, you can have all sorts of gricers: train gricers, bus gricers, tram gricers.'
'There are so many areas of interest, it's complicated,' I say, managing to slip in a few words.
'Oh yes, and if anybody gets in the way of the picture they can get very angry,' she says. 'Very angry indeed. If they're taking a picture of a steam train coming by and middle-aged women are waving from the windows, they get cross. They're ruining the authenticity of the picture. They'll go as far as cutting trees down to get the right shot.'
The legendary Boocock is passing along the carriage as she says this. There is a lot of getting up and down among the group to take different positions for pictures. He overhears what Charlie has just said.
'Some call it gardening,' he says, with an air of nonchalance.
'It's beyond the pale! They're cutting the bush back!' Charlie retorts, raising her voice and sounding a little mad. She's hit fullsteam-ahead in her Rail Enthusiasts: An Insider's Guide briefing and, despite his mystical standing, Boocock is interrupting her spiel.
Boocock, maintaining his ice-cool demeanour, looks at me, raises an eyebrow and moves on.
'People can't cut trees down. It's not fair,' Charlie says, once he is out of earshot. 'As long as you don't affect other people's lives – that should be the rule. In Argentina, there was a tree screening a bath used by the wife of a man who came out shouting. The tree had been cut down for a picture of a train.'
I try to imagine this scene: a red-faced Argentine shaking his fists at a group of trainspotters with long-lens cameras perched by a track in the depths of South America, guilty of having just chopped down the tree protecting the modesty of the red-faced Argentine's loved one.
'Gricers are too single-minded. Intelligent but obsessive, but on the whole harmless,' Charlie says, as cameras click like a swarm of crickets to capture a siding with more rusting old carriages.
And with that – and another swarm to catch the old train depot by the fork in the line outside the capital, once again – we pull in to Pristina.
Were Kosovo and Serbia on friendly terms, we might have caught a train northwards to Belgrade. However, as they are not, there are no trains between the two countries, other than a local service between Mitrovica, the northern city where many of the Serbs in Kosovo live, and a border town close to Serbia. This line is under Serb control, which seems odd given that it runs within Kosovo. Politics and trains, as I am increasingly to find, are often intertwined.
We spend a day in the capital learning more about the huge divisions that still define the region, starting with a visit to Gazimestan, the famous hill just outside Pristina where a monument from 1953 commemorates those who died in the battle between Serbia and the Turks that took place in surrounding fields in 1389. The Turks triumphed, taking Kosovo, yet over the years this battle became a symbolic cornerstone of Serbian identity. It was at this windswept hill that Slobodan Milošević gave a rousing speech calling for Serbian unity on the 600th anniversary of the conflict, in 1989. The speech stirred Serbian nationalism and antagonism against the Muslim community in Kosovo, and is regarded as an important prelude to both the break-up of Yugoslavia and the violence that followed during the Kosovo War.
The words of what is known as the 'Kosovan Curse', attributed to Prince Lazar, the Serb leader who died in the 1389 battle, are inscribed on the stone walls of the monument:
Whoever is a Serb and of Serb birth
And of Serb blood and heritage
And comes not to the Battle of Kosovo
May he never have the progeny his heart desires!
Neither son nor daughter
May nothing grow that his hand sows!
Neither dark wine nor white wheat
And let him be cursed from all ages to all ages!
Charming stuff. Afterwards we meet the British ambassador to Kosovo. His name is Ian Cliff and he's a rail enthusiast. Ian has got wind of our visit and he's curious about the party of train fans passing through his patch. So before we catch the train south to Macedonia, a few of us have tea with the ambassador.
Cliff is jockey-sized, with a flapping shirt that seems too big for him, grey hair that also flaps to one side, half glasses and baggy slacks. Everything about him seems relaxed and loose-fitting.
'Three days after independence in 2008, Serbia took control of the northern lines,' Cliff says, immediately 'talking railways' and explaining the situation around Mitrovica.
We are sitting in the rooftop cafe of the Sirius Hotel, with sweeping views of the modern buildings of the city centre as well as a derelict Serbian Orthodox church.
'If Serbia and Kosovo could create a joint railway company then maybe there could be a link from Pristina to Serbia.' Cliff sounds doubtful as he says this; such an agreement would appear to require a big forward leap in diplomacy.
The ambassador fills us in about the country: 'Some of the poverty in Kosovo is almost at African standards. In rural areas there is a lot of grinding poverty. About seventy per cent of the population is under thirty. The problem is that people come through education with high aspirations, but there are no jobs.'
He tells us about the displacement of Albanians during the Kosovo War: 'One million people were deported in three or four months. Then after the war they just walked back.' This was because there had be
en much damage to the lines during the fighting. 'They had been herded into trains. It was slightly reminiscent of the Jews in the Second World War. They mainly went just over the border in Macedonia or to Albania.'
One local guide had told us earlier that he had not felt comfortable getting on the train to Peja, as it had been his first train journey since his deportation.
'After the war the British KFOR repaired the main train line in Kosovo,' Cliff says, flipping his fringe to one side with a sweep of a hand. 'There are plans to refurbish the damaged stations.'
The ambassador sips his tea, pauses and gazes across the rooftops of Pristina. He seems pleased to be able to impart 'train information' to 'train people'. He scratches his head and says, 'Oh, and did you know that the station at Peja was the Serb intelligence headquarters during the war?'
We didn't. It's a 'train nugget' to tell the others.
Cliff seems satisfied by the response of his audience of rail enthusiasts to this – and his other nuggets – though he cannot remember the PIN for his gold credit card, so we pay for the tea. We part and the ambassador flaps off in the direction of the embassy, a breeze catching his shirt as he almost sails away along the pavement.
'When I was married, I was a doormat, but now this doormat is a magic flying carpet'
Pristina, Kosovo, to Skopje, Macedonia
Our train to Macedonia the next morning is Italian made – by Fiat in 1980 – though it was used in Sweden and rebuilt in 1993, says Boocock. He is truly a demigod when it comes to the provenance of a locomotive. Like a master sommelier assessing a rare wine, he seems to savour the whole experience, as though breathing in the very essence of the train.
He surveys the grotty grey seats.
'A little worn,' he pronounces.
After this update, Boocock disappears to a far end of the carriage.
The line upon which the carriages are travelling is, we have also learnt from the local guide, standard gauge and was built in 1874 by the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer Orientaux under Turkish guidance; the Turks wanted to connect Istanbul with Vienna, eventually achieving this in 1888.
We are on the 07:10 to Skopje, where we are due to arrive at 09:52. It is a grey day and a few of the rail enthusiasts (myself included) are slightly hungover from cheap Kosovan wine and shots of raki the night before. The weather seems to match our early-morning mood. We move southwards beneath a mushroomcoloured sky, passing a power station, a scrapyard and a series of rusting wagons. Graffiti on a wall says: R.I.P. IGENTZZ. A bedraggled piebald dog watches our progress from the trackside. The Bill Clinton Sporteve stadium comes and goes. The minaret of a mosque shoots up beyond a concrete depot. Another piece of graffiti says: URBAN WOLF, while someone else has scrawled: **** SERBIA. And not long after that, we hit undulating green countryside.
At around 9 a.m. we cross the Macedonian border, stopping beforehand by a platform sprouting weeds at Hani Elezit station. Here a Kosovan immigration official boards and stamps our passports; the stamp has a neat little picture of a steam train to show that we left by train. We change trains to another with a green locomotive built in Yugoslavia during the 1980s, according to Alan from Ffestiniog Travel (Boocock is busy talking to others), and stop at a station on the edge of Macedonia, where officials take almost an hour checking our passports after collecting them all – thus delaying the train. No undesirables are discovered among the rail enthusiasts. The Macedonian officials hand back the passports without stamping them.
We continue, twisting between hills and alongside rivers. I make friends with Margaret, a seventy-something, widowed former teacher from Surbiton, now living in Cambridge. She has fluffy white hair and a whimsical disposition; the Miss Marple of our group. She's travelling alone and reading a novel called The Page Turner by David Leavitt. I ask her what it's about.
'A gay couple – about a man who turns pages for a conductor, his lover. It's about gay love, but there's nothing too dirty,' she says.
She pauses. Talking about the book seems to have triggered a thought. 'Did you see the porn channel in the room at the hotel in Pristina?' she asks.
I hadn't.
'I mean, what can you do? You're flicking the channels and it's there!' she says.
I had not expected this turn in conversation.
Margaret begins to tell a story about a holiday she once had in Vancouver: 'I was totally lost, near Chinatown. I was worried. I didn't feel safe.' She pauses for dramatic effect. 'So I picked up a man. I asked him for help and we went for a coffee. I've been on three holidays with him since: Namibia, Iceland, St Petersburg. I can sit with him and laugh. We email each other. He's ten years younger than me and lives in Cardiff.' She rubs her fingers together. 'He has money. He's on a good little earner. Oh yes.' She pauses. Then she lowers her voice. 'When I was married, I was a doormat, but now this doormat is a magic flying carpet.' She grins and gazes out of the window.
We soon arrive at the new main station in Skopje, whereupon a few of us walk over to see the city's old station. Charlie and Johnnie have got wind of this 'station museum' and are determined to pay a visit.
Skopje was hit by a devastating earthquake at 05:17 on 26 July 1963, and the hands of the clock on the station have been left at 05:17 as a mark of respect to those who died in the quake. The City Museum is housed in what was once the ticket office. Inside there are displays about the earthquake and how most of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture of the city was destroyed. A yellowing cutting from The Sunday Times dated 28 July 1963 is in one cabinet. 'When I drove into the devastated tourist city of Skopje at daybreak today, Yugoslav army rescue teams who had worked all night by searchlight had just dug the 262nd body out of the huge piles of rubble which fill almost every street of this ancient Macedonian capital,' writes reporter Antony Terry. Altogether, more than 1,000 people died and 200,000 were left homeless.
The disaster struck during the rule of President Josip Tito, who rebuilt the city with mainly ugly communist-style blocks, we discover. Since gaining independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 – avoiding the bloodshed of other parts of the Balkans – the country has been steadily tearing down the most depressing Titoera architecture, a programme that has accelerated in the past five years. From the old station we walk along the River Vardar, inspecting grand new government buildings, new bridges flanked with figurines of heroes of the past, and a giant, recently completed statue of Alexander the Great, who is believed to have come from the territory of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), as the country is officially recognised by the United Nations. This incredible burst of construction, complete with new Alexander-the-Great-style galleys converted into restaurants and bars on the river, is regarded as an explosive expression of national identity: post Yugoslavia, the new Macedonia is established, on the map and here to stay.
Skopje is where I part from the rail enthusiasts, many of whom I have got to know well. They are going onwards by train to Albania, but I am travelling to the other side of the globe – to see what the future might hold for train travel. It's been fun while it lasted, and I'm grateful to all for my immersion in 'rail enthusiasm'. Every loco, every track – just about every siding or old wagon – seems to tell a story, as do so many of those on board.
I now know a gricer when I see one, and how to tell the difference between a haulage basher and a track basher. I now have a decent inkling of what makes a rail enthusiast tick and I've realised something: there's nothing especially odd about the hobby.
I've been on safaris with holidaymakers peering avidly through binoculars at distant grey spots that might be elephants, buffalo or wildebeest. I've seen twitchers on birdwatching breaks cooing with delight after catching a fraction of a second's glimpse of a lesser spotted woodpecker or a ruby-throated hummingbird. The only difference is the subject: trains… and lots of them. Big trains, small trains, old trains, new trains, with a smattering of stations, depots, narrow-gauge tracks and forks in the line thrown in. Trains. Simple as that:
lots and lots of trains and train things. And for the less obsessive, of course: the chance to see interesting countries in a pleasant and relaxed way, far removed from the usual tourist hordes.
On the final night we dine on 'peasant pots' of pork in a rich mushroom sauce at a restaurant with an ironic, nostalgic Tito theme. FIRST PICTURES OF MARSHAL TITO runs the headline on the cover of a copy of Life magazine that is pinned to a wall. He wears a dapper cream suit and a puzzled expression; as well he might have at the time, as the future of Yugoslavia was far from certain.
We raise glasses of fizzy Skopsko local beer – rail enthusiasts enjoying downtime in a little-visited corner of south-eastern Europe (cameras and notebooks in bags beneath the table) – and I think about the train adventure ahead.
3
CHINA: FAST NOODLES AND REVOLUTIONS
OUTSIDE THE FORBIDDEN City on Tiananmen Square, it's a pleasant early evening in May. A breeze stirs, catching the red national flag near the golden facade of the Imperial Palace, upon which the visage of Chairman Mao gazes serenely. He's wearing a trademark buttoned-up jacket and looks like the archetypal benevolent ruler surveying his subjects – across the site of the bloody protests against his Communist Party in 1989, just 13 years after his death.
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