Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
… with time on their hands and loosened from themselves, they
fell to communing with the evanescent terrain sliding past the
window, open to what it told them.
A study undertaken by Lyons et al (2007) in the UK noted that passengers trav-
elling for leisure purposes devoted twice as much time than other passengers to
gazing. Travel time is also used for other activities while on the move, such as
the time to think (de Botton, 2002; Lyons and Urry, 2005). Just over half of
passengers in the same study spent some of their time reading for leisure, and
over one-third indicated that they spent a third of their time in this activity.
The train has long been associated with the traveller and, through the
words of travel writers, with slow travel. The traveller is engaged in the
process of the journey which, in turn, might also lead to a change in the self,
as summarized by Galani-Moutafi (2000, p205):
It can be argued that the journey has the potential to facilitate
a re-setting of boundaries as the traveling self, besides moving
from one place to another, may embark in additional journey-
ing practice, having constantly to negotiate between the familiar
and the unknown between a here, a there and an elsewhere …
There is a market that seeks train travel as a destination in its own right, some-
times as a form of nostalgia and with connotations of romanticism. Dann
(1994, p779) draws on our cultural links with the past in noting that 'travel
by train is not simply a journey between two points. It is full of symbolism
which evokes a glorious, aristocratic and adventurous past.' His work on nos-
talgia and tourism focuses on travel material designed to promote railways in
the early 1990s in several parts of the world. He used content analysis to
explore the image and the positioning of messages on the part of the railway
companies. He concludes that there are five interrelated themes wrapped
around the concept of nostalgia and railways:
1
imperialism, which refers to railway-building and colonialism of previous
times
2
class distinction, by elevating oneself to first-class travel for a journey; for
example, a trip on the Orient Express
3
travail by rail, which alludes to the effort required to make some train
journeys; they are not always enjoyable
4
childhood remembrances of travel and playing trains
5
gazing at passing scenery and townscapes.
His work, however, focused very much on train services designed for affluent
tourists, such as the Orient Express in Europe, the Ghan train in Australia
(Adelaide to Darwin), or heritage trains which accentuate the luxury of travel
for the wealthy in past decades. It is therefore questionable whether this moti-
vation for rail travel, as an exploration of the past, is applicable to the slow
traveller using trains not designed specifically for tourism purposes.
