The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Fantasy, however, is not a word often associated with Theroux’s writing: curmudgeonly is the adjective more often reached for. In part, this is because of his refusal to provide the tourist board sanctioned version of the countries through which he travels. La Trochita passengers are special people too. A proof of this is, for example, that a few years ago a group of twenty English tourists paid a considerable amount of money to rent the train for a weekend and do the tour slowly, stopping whenever they needed to take pictures. These tourists are as special as the train itself: they know the history of each machine, which the original wagons are and the stories of each railway line. That is why the emotion they feel when they are in front of the old locomotives, born at the beginnings of the past century, is unequaled. Ancient first class wagon of La Trochita – Photo: Secretaría de Turismo de Esquel

A battered beast, this train has fought off the elements, accidents and several attempts at closure through the years. The service was much used for freight through the 1960s and 1970s, contributing to the development of the area, especially the construction of the dam on the Futaleufú River and the growth of El Maitén thanks to the locomotive maintenance operation. I suppose Paul Theroux’s travel writing isn’t for everyone. If you don’t like his traveling persona you aren’t likely to enjoy his books. That being said, I like his traveling persona, so every travel book is a pleasure and there are still books to be read. But I decided to read The Old Patagonia Express because a friend reminded me that he travels to South America in this book. South America is a place that I have had a recent interest in and this summer I made my first visit to the continent when I attended a conference in Peru. I often travel alone like Theroux, for different reasons perhaps. Theroux writes about travel being its best as a solitary experience in that you get to see, examine, assess alone, which is something that requires that you be unencumbered with a companion. I’m not sure that I completely agree but I feel that traveling alone does give you this perspective. In my case few people have the time or inclination to travel the way I do, so I tend to visit friends in far flung places and combine work with leisure travel. I would rather have companions, but I agree that you have better mediation while traveling alone with the time and peace to think clearly without the company of other people. In fact, initially the route connecting the provinces of Rio Negro and Chubut was planned to be much bigger. In 1908 the Argentine government wanted a railway line that crossed the entire territory of Patagonia, passing from the Andes to the ports on the south coast and arriving in Buenos Aires.Theroux pauses for a moment: “But, you know, I do love travelling by train. The idea that you can get on a train in London and go to Paris, or you can get on a train in London and go to Hong Kong, for that matter, if you have a lot of time on your hands, it’s really quite wonderful.”

He makes it clear that he isn't going to be like other travel books. Other travel books always play up how nice other countries are. He's out to write one that looks into the face of all the ugliness, Maaaaaan. so, with an edgy project like that, you can go two ways: he plays up all the meanness, boredom, and frustration with people and places, or accurately represents that he is a genuine curmudgeonly, unpleasant person. who knows.Feeding the stove is the only way to stay warm in the polar cold that lasts for almost the entire year. And that’s enough to make the long journey 600 metres (1968 feet) above sea level through plateaus, lakes, forests and semi-desert areas. It is a journey through a world that seems motionless, on a train that never runs faster than 60 kilometers per hour (37 mph). A journey between history and legend, which for decades — before it became a major tourist attraction — marked the life and mystery of one of the world’s most unique regions. This is for sure the most famous narrow gauge train in the world, together with the Trans Siberian and the Orient Express. A witty sharply observed journey down the length of North and South America.Beginning his journey in Boston, where he boarded the subway commuter train, and catching trains of all kinds on the way, Paul Theroux tells of his voyage from ice-bound Massachusetts and Illinois to the arid plateau of Argentina’s most southerly tip. Sweating and shivering by turns as the temperature and altitude shoot up and down, thrown in with the appalling Mr Thornberry in Limon and reading nightly to the blind writer, Borges, in Buenos Aires, Theroux vividly evokes the contrasts of a journey ‘to the end of the line’. The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux – eBook Details The Railroad is now open over its whole length of 402 km, but steam trains for the public run currently only in three sections. In The Old Patagonian Express, Theroux takes us on a Journey; and literally a journey with the starting point and destination just posing as ancilliary for this whole book. I will never get to see the South America Theroux described when he traveled, with poverty and only a mild tinge of modernisation, which in present times might make all the places quite mundane.

Does this train have a name?” I asked…He laughed. “This train is too insignificant to have a name. The government is talking about getting rid of it.” “Isn’t it called ‘The Esquel Arrow’ or something like that?’ He shook his head. “Or ‘The Patagonian Express’?” “The Old Patagonian Express’”, he said… Today it provides one of the world’s most famous train journeys and arguably South America’s finest. The steady march of global tourism is a challenge for writers who follow in the shoes of Theroux and his generation, who travelled when the world seemed untrammelled and the concept of being an “adventurer” wasn’t quaint. I might just re-read Dark Star Safari now, perhaps I've matured enough now to notice that's not such a good book anymore either. Oh but what do I know? Acccording to Paul Theroux, it's practically impossible for me to know much or be interesting at my age. For many years it contained an authentic community of raucous railwaymen, like those who used to inhabit Alemanía much further north along the Andes.If you enjoyed The Old Patagonian Express, you might like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Wind, Sand and Stars, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. In reality, after World War I and its damage to the country’s economy, the project was put aside while work continued on the construction of the line connecting Esquel with Ingeniero Jacobacci – the Old Patagonian Express. When roads started to be built in the 1970s, the Old Patagonian Express saw its role as a strategic infrastructure for trade start to wane. But it slowly started a new life as an international tourist attraction thanks also in part to Paul Theroux’s book “The Old Patagonian Express.” This small town of 4,000 inhabitants located in Northwest Chubut, where the mountains begin to give way to the steppe.

Well and also, he is probably one of those very people I hate talking to. One of those people who dump themselves beside you on a train and try and strike up conversation with you, when all you want is some peace and quiet. Then when they lure you into a conversation, they ask you all sorts of questions about yourself, who you are and where you're headed, then, because they have all the time in the world to waste and nothing better or more productive to do, they start asking you about your opinions on philosophy and politics and religion and more, (all those sensitive topics - my grandmother always says there are two things you cannot talk to people about and that's religion and politics, and she was a teacher too) to just walk away without having any input of their own, to judge you and feel good about themselves. That's not discussing. That's just being judgmental and a bloody smartarse.Whether trembling and windowless (as in Guatemala) or, as on the Lone Star Amtrak train from Chicago to Oklahoma, a smooth ride refreshed by the dining car’s halibut and chilled Chablis, rail is Theroux’s companion in The Old Pat­agonian Express: comforting and intransigent by turns. Then as now, he loves a train, however rasping and half-sprung. Call me a fanatic of Theroux's work, but travel writing isn't always about "Sugar-coating" your experiences with Wows and Awes. Paul is undoubtedly the Best in his class and he is never afraid of calling a place what it actually is.