/Railroad Tracks

Railroad Tracks

Railroad tracks between Brussels and Gent, 15/08/2018

Hi, my name is Eva, and I use to hate travelling. I love being places, but the getting to them was always a bit of a drag.

Now, when I stay put for longer, I start getting anxious and uneasy. I used to hate train travel especially, because train service in Bulgaria used to be bad and incredibly slow (I haven’t used them in decades, so may be they still are!).

But taking this photo – just for the fun of it, I suddenly realized I actually like going for the occasional train ride. 

And it got me daydreaming of the endless kilometers of railroad tracks snaking through Eurasia and taking people to the most exotic or most common places, for most exiting or most ordinary trips.

It got me thinking also of the decades that railroads have been appearing and disappearing across the continent and the millions of lives they have changed in peaceful times and in war. I felt an intimate connection with these parallel bars of iron and steel, just thinking about their journeys, because people on the train, I bet, rarely look at the tracks and think of them as something extraordinary anymore.

Fun fact: Only in the EU the total length of railroads in 2016 was 211 409 km (according to the World Bank).

Do you like travelling? Leave a comment!