Meeting on a train is the stuff of nightmares in real life. How many times have you sat in your seat and prayed that no one will talk to you and break into your personal space? And yet its also the stuff of story fantasy. Take my all time favourite film, the 1995 film Before Sunrise, for example, a film where they talk, talk some more, and talk until they maybe, possibly get together. Caroline’s report this morning reminded me of a real-life version of this film. We will never know now whether these two ever see each other again since their parting at Didcot…

You can form lasting friendships on trains though, as I myself have proved. Twenty-one years ago on a much-delayed British Railways Cross-Country train from Crewe to Norwich (so late that instead of reaching my onward destination of Lowestoft in time for tea, my mum and dad had to collect me from Norwich after midnight!) I met my friend Carole – she a strudent in Liverpool. We struck up a conversation, and became friends. We saw each other a couple of times after that and  have exchanged Christmas cards and letters every year since then. And now with Facebook we are more in contact.

So friendships formed on trains are not just the thing of storybooks or wish-fulfilment on the count of fellow-passengers Maybe this couple that Caroline saw will find themselves again. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they heard the story on the radio too and got in contact?!

Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith

I think everybody has met at least one person on a train and this is a story of four people who do just that; thrown together by chance and circumstance.

For myself I met Carole on a much-delayed cross-country train as we were both going home for the weekend (from different universities). We talked, made friends, swapped contact details and stayed in in contact. Every year we exchange Christmas cards and news; she has her life and I have mine. A story that uses this has its central conceit is not an original idea – one of my favourite films is Before Sunrise in which two characters doing just that – but it is a comforting one.

In this book you are presented with four very different versions of love in the four stories that Kay, Hugh, Andrew, and David tell each other. Or at least the versions of their “real” love stories that they choose to tell.

Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith

I think everybody has met at least one person on a train and this is a story of four people who do just that; thrown together by chance and circumstance.

For myself I met Carole on a much-delayed cross-country train as we were both going home for the weekend (from different universities). We talked, made friends, swapped contact details and stayed in in contact. Every year we exchange Christmas cards and news; she has her life and I have mine. A story that uses this has its central conceit is not an original idea – one of my favourite films is Before Sunrise in which two characters doing just that – but it is a comforting one.

In this book you are presented with four very different versions of love in the four stories that Kay, Hugh, Andrew, and David tell each other. Or at least the versions of their “real” love stories that they choose to tell.

Originally published at shepline: the journal. You can comment here or there.