Let the train take the strain

Let the train take the strain?

I’m a frequent visitor to the South of Spain. I fly there. I hate it, the bustle and panic of airports, the demented passengers who lose all sense of courtesy and reality and are frankly lethal to encounter.

Airport staff seem to lose the ability to behave reasonably when confronted with a lone blind traveler. I don’t appreciate being confined to some out of the way place to fret about being forgotten and then frog marched via the back of the dustbins onto the plain. There I sit uncomfortably dwelling upon how and if I’m going to get off and whether I’ll ever find my luggage again!

So I thought I’d take the train! Since the advent of high speed trains across Europe it is now possible to get from London to Malaga by train in 24 hours. I take the Euro star to Paris, the overnight train to Madrid and the high speed link down to Malaga. I have to cross two capital cities and get to a hotel in Malaga to get the transfer up to the mountain (my final destination.)

The first point at issue is whether and or how to let the train companies know I am blind and need assistance or whether to trust to the kindness of strangers. Now I’ve done a lot of travelling across Europe by train in my youth. I would get on at Liverpool Street and arrive somewhat grubby and crumpled in Helsinki or somewhere else, some days later. I travelled hopefully, trusting in fellow passengers, negotiating assistance as I went. Aside from a certain incident in Eastern Holland where I was taken into protective police custody, (ahem) my travels were relatively uneventful and I usually arrived unscathed at the specified destination and time.

These days, I’m a lot more compliant and a little less trusting. I’m now working out how to book assistance. There’s no one stop shop for arranging disabled travel help across borders. I will have to negotiate with three train companies between trains, there’s the getting across two capital cities to contend with too. If it is anything like in the UK, there’ll be demarcation lines between companies I’ll have to breech. And since I went blind instead of taking my French and Spanish ‘O’ levels way back in the mists of time, I can’t rely on talking my way out of any difficulties.

So it’s not going to be as simple as getting on a train and getting off again. I’ve got a lot of preparation to do to make it possible to get where I want to go, without stress and mishap. But I tell you, the thought of not having to deal with airports and all that they contain, makes the idea of the train really quite exciting. It’ll be an adventure just like when I was young!