Riding the rails

I don’t care if it’s the German Ice, the French TGV or the Swiss double deckers, I love riding on trains. They are sleek, beautiful and comfortable.
As soon as I got back to Geneva last October I renewed my three year pass for 350 CHF which is good for three years. All trips are 50% off, with two years and nine months left to go I am already 122 CHF ahead. The pass is also good for boats, bus daily tickets and cable cars. I also renewed my French old person’s pass which was 83 CHF and when I bought my ticket to go to Paris, it had already paid for itself.

But it is not just the savings. This time on the way to Frankfort, I met a young man with his 11 month old son, on their way to visit the mother/grandmother. Often on trains to chat, the first thing to determine is which language is best. He was German mother tongue, and although during my trip to Frankfort I was able to make myself understood—barely—we ended up in French then English. Before I changed trains in Bern, we were exchanging books we thought the other would like as his son slept peacefully.

Besides not adding car pollution to the environment, in a train you can read, sleep, eat (how many cars have restaurants?) or as in the case of this trip meet interesting people to chat with?