The paradoxical attractions of luxury train travel seem to be rooted in the fascination of rail. This extends beyond national boundaries so that a South African passenger who has enjoyed a rail trip will be able to imagine very well what it would be like to travel in Russia or India.
Film sequences with trains are so common that there must be some rational explanation.in the classic, 'High Noon' the tension that mounts is tied to the time that the train will arrive bringing two worlds together. There is a sense of inevitability and expectation as passengers are depicted standing on platforms waiting for who, or what, a train will bring from outside, in.
In 'Passage to India' the director, David Lean, has a memorable sequence when two British ladies travel in a luxury train with desperately poor people clinging to the sides and sitting on the roof. At one point a lady slides open a door and is shocked to discover an Indian servant crouching in a cramped space adjoining her compartment. He is poaching eggs for her breakfast. The contrast between luxury and poverty is conveyed by the visual impact.
The notion of luxury is represented in a concise visual metaphor. Even as the British public seem content to support a monarch whose function is simply to wave and dress up, so poor people seem to derive some strange pleasure through affording comfort and ease to others. Through many civilizations the privileged few have cossetted themselves in sumptuousness that others seem to enjoy vicariously. It appears that wild excesses have a fascination beyond envy.
In a luxury train the extremes of existence are represented symbolically. Power and servitude, wealth and poverty are dramatically juxtaposed. Wealthy passengers are in close proximity to their hostesses, to chefs and stewards who work in intimate spaces with their clients. Yet another juxtaposition puts passengers close to the earth. They may sit in an observation car, watch the rails fall away behind them, travel through districts of abject poverty and yet be within an arm's length of luxury.
As Aristotle pointed out, drama depends upon opposite impulses. He suggested that the tension between pity and fear are at the heart of what makes things intriguing. That may be why so many film directors use locomotives and railway stations as settings for action.
In some countries such as South Africa there is a rich history or railway travel. Colonial powers used trains to move around remote territories and in many cases the rulers from Britain like to display power and superiority through modes of travel. Restored period carriages provide the extra dimension of old and new combined. The style of bygone eras is followed but refurbishments are new and pristine so that the old can be experienced in all the newness that the original travelers enjoyed.
Film directors and luxury train travel enthusiasts see similar things in trains to draw fascination and intrigue. The central paradox is in a fixed world that moves continually on rails. As passengers as admire the passing scenery there is some doubt about whether it is they who are moving or the surroundings.in that there is a particular fascination.
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