The non-sleeping carriage on the diminutive Belgrade to Sofia train was a flippin’ nightmare. It looked as if a hick’s chicken house had been gutted and someone had carelessly thrown in some old Thameslink seats without any consideration of tables, antimacassars, carpets or any other comfort, or the fact that the train was about to embark on a ten hour journey.
For some time before departure, the service’s three carriages sat in darkness, looking as if were on day release but given up, waiting for nurse to wheel them back to the sidings. Eventually, lights begrudgingly came on, people were let on board and the damned thing acquired an engine. And we were off, crawling into the early hours with passengers including an icy cool photography man, a happy iPod man listening to what may have been Santana, and a woman opposite reading a kids’ version of Gulliver’s Travels. I decided to sleep on my belongings in order not to have them stolen, and because they were more comfortable than the seat itself and wondered what on earth possessed me not to have paid the extra ten euros for a couchette. And why the hell such a stupid, dramatic night train formed the only train, direct or otherwise, between neighbouring capital cities.
We plodded through the darkness of Stalać, Niš and Dragoman, and subjected to security checks and frequent, prolonged stops. My senses were appeased with my iPod and the odd can of Sick Nick, but jangled by stinking wafts from an “aim in the dark” no-water water closet at the end of the carriage, which didn’t so much carry the cross channel whiff of ammonia and old farts, as assailed the senses with a burning stench.
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