I have this intense craving for a novel about riding the train basically. My issue is I don’t want it to just be a setting amidst a larger plot. No train murder stories, no regular stories that just happen to take place on a train.
I need the novel to be wholly about the experience of riding the train, maybe across the US maybe just between two cities whatever. It just has to focus on the experience the train provides and the spirit of public transport.
Insane how hard this is for me to find maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Trains are so beautiful it’s a group of people who have never met and they’re all connected through experience, locked in to a direction literally bound by the railway. There is God in the railway. Infinite potential to be tapped in this hyper specific idea.
Since you don’t want a story, I suggest a train-specific travel book rather than a novel.
you’ll get the highest concentration of train lore with travel books. Any novel will be focused on a story, with the train as a set piece rather than the focal point.
Amazing Train Journeys, Ticket to Ride, around the world in 80 trains, The Big Book of Trains, there are lots of train travel books to choose from.
Seconded, this is one of my favourite travel books of all time!
Train travel blog would also be a good recommendation.
I like this idea I’ll look around for this
Check out “The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia” by Paul Theroux. It might fit the bill. If that appeals to you, then definitely look into his other books too.
Will do!
Mrs Bradshaw’s Handbook, by Terry Pratchett comes to mind, although I suspect you aren’t looking for a book about a train journey through an imaginary landscape.
Not exactly, but it sounds interesting nonetheless and I’ll check it out!
Hmm, that is tricky, isn’t it? Of course there are many travelogues about train journeys and many novels where the train journey is incidental. I can even think of a radio show on the BBC, Alexei Sayle’s Strangers on a Train, where the presenter takes train journeys and talks to people he meets about their journeys and their lives:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0013zmp?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
However, novels like the one you are looking for are elusive and nothing comes to mind. For what it’s worth, here’s a list of train-related books from Goodreads, which might give you some ideas:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/89742.Tales_on_Track_Trains_in_Fiction
The closest media I know would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_to_the_End_of_the_World It’s an anime not a book and it’s not great. After the first episode it has its charm.
Maybe you can write one based on a YouTube channel. There are many train videos there from people who love train travel like yourself.
That sounds like literally the most boring book I could imagine.
There is lots of beauty in the mundane.
Be a good audiobook for bedtime perchance
