

Warning: After listening you might just find yourself booking a ticket and heading off on a train adventure.
One murky afternoon in 2001 London station manager Mark Smith, browsing the bookshelves for something to read on the train home, found a teach yourself HTML’ guide. The resulting train travel website ‘The Man in Seat 61’, now gets over 1 million visits a month. Mark has wonderful stories and trips for train travel to Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Albania, Tunisia, Syria, Marrakech, Istanbul, Ukraine & the Crimea, Petra & Aqaba, Moscow, Vladivostok, Tokyo & Nagasaki via the Trans-Siberian Railway, all over Burma, all over the US and so much more.
On this episode we talk about:
That fateful day he bought the HTML guide
His million visits a month
How he started the website as a hobby
The fateful night at Marylebone where on the spur of the moment he bought a book about website making
How it’s much easier to take the train than people think
The reason behind ‘Seat 61’
Moscow, Vladivostok, Tokyo and more by train
Working at university for Transalpino issuing European train tickets
Whether interrailing is still a big thing
How you can go interrailing even if you’re not a student
How train travel is far more cilviised than train
How journeys should have an intrinsic value
Lisa’s train journey from Istanbul to London via Sofia, Budapest, Vienna, Paris.
Mark’s best train journeys in Europe – the Caledonian Sleeper, the Bernina express through the Alps in Switzerland.
The money saving side of sleeping while you travel
What it’s like on the Trans Siberian Railway
The Moscow-Beijing Express
The Moscow-Vladivostok train
Train through the Gobi Dessert and the mountains of China
The ship from Vladivostok to Japan
London Waterloo to Japan overland
How making an effort makes us enjoy it more
Delayed gratification
How some of the worst experiences of travel can turn out to be the best
The fabulous rickety journey along the Nile to Luxor
Whiskey drinking barman on the slow train to Luxor
Being the only person on the Istanbul train to Aleppo in Syria
Travelling in the cab Abdullah and Sammy from Aleppo depot
Collecting money for the children of Syria
The spectacular mountainous 20 Euro all day ride from Belgrade to the Adriatic
Meeting Richard from EMI records who’d wined an dined Kate Bush on the Trans Siberian Railway
Michael Palin and his inflatable globe
Mutton and rice on the Outer Mongolian dining car
The new Chinese high speed trains
The Beeching report that decimated the UK’s railways in the 1960s
Car congestion
The railways second golden age
More Passengers now than after the first world war when the network was twice the size
Hopes that some old lines will be reopened
Lake District and the old the to Penrith
Reopening the east coast rail from Oxford to Cambridge
How travel destroys prejudice and makes people revel in the difference
How Burma/Myanmar was like stepping back in time
How review sites don’t always inspire people
Taking reviews with a pinch of salt
His greatest American train journey
Amtrak California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco – the Mississippi the flatlands of Nebraska, scaling the east face of the Rockies from Denver, the strange tradition of the people on the Colorado river (mooning!), Utah, Nevada, the Sierra Nevada, the Donna Pass (cannibalism!)
Can any of our US listeners (somewhere between Salt Lake City and Denver) clear up this strange happening?!
How all Burma train journeys are fantastic
The beautiful views from the single track, slow train linking Taze on the Mandalay Rangoon/Yangon line with Inle Lake
Taking the kids across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2
The annoying school holidays
The future of overnight train journeys
How faster trains have eradicated some sleeper train routes
The difficult economics of sleeper trains with budget airline competition
The lovely London to Cornwall overnight train arriving in Penzance at 8am
Pulman Dining with fine wine and fine food on the daytime trains
The best route from London to Malaga in the south in Spain
Eurostar to Paris – Barcelona on TGV through the Rhone Valley, vineyards, flamingoes, the Pyrenees.
The train hotel from Paris to Madrid
Planning to try out the New Hong Kong to Beijing High speed train – huge scale investment in China in high-speed rail
How the website has changed his life
How the website tries to give people the best tips:
The new Venice train that goes via Prosecco – yes it’s really a place!
The viaduct flattened during the war
How booking with the right website – usually the provider – can mean we can take cheap tickets and explore Europe at our fingertips
Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona