Train talk

[DZ]

Has anyone travelled on the high-speed trains in France using the new service of putting passangers next to other travellers with the same interests as them?  Apparently, if you travel between Paris and certain cities and you book online on www.idtgvandco.com , you can ensure you will be sitting next to someone who shares your interests!  There is an article about it in today's Independent: http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/artcle112948.ece

If you chose this service, what topic would you choose to discuss?

[Just Katie]

It would like to be placed with passengers who are railways enthusiasts and would glean as much information from them as I possibly could.  In fact I would like to know more about the sights of France and Belguim.

[Christine Animal]

Every time I'm in a train I fall asleep, it's true, must be something relaxing about it.  So I would like to be next to a railway sleeper...  [geek]

 

[DZ]

They do "silent" wagons too, so you could fall asleep happily in one of those, Christine!  As for me, I would love to talk about languages - for instance the different noises that animals make in different languages.  Fascinating!

[Chauffour]

[quote user="davieszak"]

They do "silent" wagons too, so you could fall asleep happily in one of those, Christine!  As for me, I would love to talk about languages - for instance the different noises that animals make in different languages.  Fascinating!

[/quote]

 

in Italian:

dog: bau bau

rooster: chiccirichi

chick: pio pio

chicken: coccode'

goose: qua qua

pig:  oink

cat: miao

bird: cip cip (small bird), ciop ciop (big bird)

pigeon: crucuu

donkey: iooo ioooo

fish:                     (small fish)                                   (big fish)

 

 

 

 

[Christine Animal]

....... Well, I'm glad there are silent wagons ! [:P]

[Pads]

Id just like to sit next to some one whos know where we are going !!!!!

Im very interested in what you were saying about animals talking in different accents , i was trying to tell my friend about this when i came back from france but she told me id had to much wine. but the cats and dogs i met where certainly talking a different language than mine back home. is there any proof of this i could show her?

[DZ]

I am going to shatter the silence with some more animal noises (sorry, Christine!):

In Polish:

dog:   hau hau   rooster: kukuryku   chick: pi pi   chicken: ko ko   goose: ge ge   pig: chrum chrum

cat: miau   pigeon: huhulku   donkey: io   fish: (little fish)   (big fish)!

[Just Katie]

Cats speak the universal language then.  The english of the animal world.

[Viv]

I'd have to be on the 'nodding off then waking up all of a startle and trying  to look normal,whilst hoping I haven't dribbled carriage'

[Just Katie]

That snoring lark when you fall asleep on trains and aeroplanes is really embarrassing.  My children pretend they don't know me.

[Tresco]

I'd want to sit next to someone with a child or children aged between 8 months and about 8 years.

The other adult/s would hopefully have stated a desire to sit with someone who likes being with children.

We would then proceed to keep all the nodders and sleepers awake.[;-)]

 

[Viv]

Now that is just plain cruel!

[DZ]

[quote user="KatieKopyKat"]Cats speak the universal language then.  The english of the animal world.[/quote]

I loved that one, KKK!

Back to the original thread, I wonder if many people using this train service register their interest as "train spotting"... And what would that be in French?! 

[Patmobile]

Interested in sex & travel?

Patrick

[Chris Head]

Sounds interesting Katie, I'm not sure I have the right kind of anorak to join y'all,though.

Chris

[Just Katie]

I love trains. 

As a child I lived in London.  My Welsh mother used to insist on holidays in Wales.  We would board the train amongst the hustle and bustle of Paddington Station.  We would get on board an old train with compartments, very Agatha Christie. 

Me and my little brother would pull the blinds down and put the lights on. Then we would put the blinds up and turn the lights off.  (I was really annoying even as a child). 

I remember the feeling as the train left the city, cross country through the fields.  We would change at Cardiff onto the Valley Lines train.  We would have been quicker walking.  It would trundle up the valley with a very slow rhythmn (longest word in English language without a vowel).  The valley sides would get steeper and steeper.  The terraces high above the valley would amaze me.  The river surrounded by greenery was something spectacular to a kid from the smoke.

The sun would be setting at that time.  It was a long journey in the 70's casting a red hues for as far as I could see.  In London the block of flats next door used to spoil that sight every night.

My nan and grandpa (welsh speaking) used to meet us at the little station.  We used to walk along a little woooden bridge, up a steep path to the end terraced house on top of the hill.  The views were incredible.  He used to wrap me up in a welsh shawl and carry me around the garden sharing strawberries...... sorry going on a bit.

Anyway that's why I like trains.  They take you somewhere nice.

 

[DZ]

Aah, that was a lovely story, KKK.  Made me think of the times when I used to visit my granny and grandpa, going on a steam train (I'm not joking - they still had them in Poland in the 1960's!)...

P.S. So what is "train spotting" in French?  My dictionary doesn't have it!

[Alcazar]

[quote user="davieszak"]Aah, that was a lovely story, KKK.  Made me think of the times when I used to visit my granny and grandpa, going on a steam train (I'm not joking - they still had them in Poland in the 1960's!)...[/quote]

So did we, in the UK......until mid 1968!

[quote user="davieszak"]P.S. So what is "train spotting" in French?  My dictionary doesn't have it!

[/quote]

It doesn't exist. I once tried to EXPLAIN it to some French people, but they just aked, "So when you've seen ALL the locos, what do you get? Or win?".

There ARE rail entusiasts, though, may of them employed by SNCF, and not having the silly adverse publicity of the small minded few who mock enthusiasts in the UK, they aren't afraid to admit it.

It NEVER fails to amaze me how sitting watching/photographing trains is regarded as somehow subnormal, but hitting a small white ball into a hole you can't even SEE with a huge oddly shaped expensive stick, isn't! Nor is sitting with a hooked baited line in water where there may, or may not be, fish, for hours, in all weathers, and then chucking any fish you catch BACK!

Oh well, it takes all sorts.

Sorry Russethouse, I've gone off topic. Better give me a b*llocking and threaten to lock the thread[:D]

Alcazar

 

[Just Katie]

In the 1970's, the culture difference between my parents were enormous.  If my cockney grandmother had met my welsh bopa (aunt) they would never have been able to converse. I always loved coming to Wales as a child and France gives me the same feeling as an adult.

[Christine Animal]

[quote user="Viv"]I'd have to be on the 'nodding off then waking up all of a startle and trying  to look normal,whilst hoping I haven't dribbled carriage'[/quote]

That's my carriage Viv, we could travel together...   [:)]

 

[Just Katie]

Regarding trainspotting,  how does it work?  Do you take the number of all the trains that you see or something?

[Chris Head]

A lovely story KKK. Oh ye cynic Alcazar, maybe the Mods lost the rulebook tonight....or their taskmasters are away on a Welsh train and lost in the Taffy valleys and the laptops got nicked in Liverpool on the way through?

Chris

[Gardian]

KKK .............

Never thought I'd find myself 'in bed' with Alcazar, but I'm happy to admit that I was once a train spotter!  And yes, that (not terribly surprisingly) is the way it works. I still retain an interest, but not much time / opportunity now.

There's the track of an old line not far from us - long since lifted and grown over. I'd love to know the history of it - when it was closed, where the stations were, etc, etc. It's absolutely typical of the situation in the UK in the post-WW2 period - lines running from knowhere to knowhere, serving stations miles from the places they purported to represent. It's a bit like archeology really. I keep looking on the market book stalls for 'that-book that'll tell-me-all-about-it', but never do of course. Perhaps I should research it and try to get it published?  Sales forecast: zero.

Going back to the original thread, I never want to talk to strangers on trains or planes, any more than they want to talk to me.  Daft idea. (the SNCF thing, not the thread).

  

[Pip]

My grandfather drove the steam train from Gloucester to the welsh valleys daily (met my welsh grandmother this way !) and my great grandfather was a train driver for the Midland Railway back in the late 1800's.  He lived in Railway cottage in Bath (sweet).  I can't understand why, when it's in the blood, I always get travel sick on a train !![:-))]