Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it. Those whistles sing bewitchment: Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly no matter what the landscape, increasing your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink. The train can reassure you in awful places – a far cry from the anxious sweats of doom airplanes inspire, or the nauseating gas-sickness of the long distance bus, or the paralysis that afflicts the car passanger. If a train is large and comfortable you don’t even need a destination; a corner seat is enough, and you can be one of those travelers who stay in motion, straddling the tracks, and never arrive or feel they ought to – like that man who lives on Italian Railways because he is retired and has a free pass. Better to go first class than to arrive, or, as the English novelist Michael Frayn once rephrased McLuhan: ‘the journey is the goal’. But I had chosen Asia, and when I remembered it was half a world away I was only glad.

Then Asia was out the window, …