The Train to Timisoara

This time I have arrived at the station on my own. It was raining and so I took a taxi here. I was going to take the maxitaxi and walk down to the station but it is entirely too sloppy. It has been raining for days. There is water everywhere. I am wearing my favorite jeans and Birks so I am ready to get on the train without a hitch. Of course, what I did not think about is that the weight of all the handouts has made my carry-on horrendously heavy. Someday I will learn to travel light, but probably not in this lifetime. When the train arrives, you have about two minutes to get aboard. That would be fine if I knew where to be. There are four tracks in Gura Humorului. Amazing for such a tiny place! I ask at the ticket window where to stand. I go to where I understood I should be but several people tell me to go to the other end of the track. I have a first class ticket this time, finally. I am determined to enjoy this trip. I am in wagon number seven. You would think that was the seventh car but it is the third. I hear the train before I see it. I take this picture in a hurry as I have to gather my things and get ready. Soon it rounds the bend and screeches to a stop. I have to race down four train cars to get to the one I have a ticket for. You cannot get on the wrong car and move through the train for some reason and so it is necessary to be in the right place when it arrives. I get to the car and have to wait for three other people to get on as they were there first. Then I try to hoist my bag into the train. Not happening.

We have been traveling downhill for over an hour now. It is dark so there is no way to tell what it might look like out there. I hear the steel wheels screech against the tracks as they wind down the side of the mountain. It is peculiar to feel the train lean to the left and ten to the right without being able to see where it is we are going. I am looking forward to the return trip as it will be daylight. Although it will be uphill rather than down, it will be interesting to see the terrain we are traveling through. We slow down every few minutes. I think the brakes have been engaged most of the time in the hour and a half since we began this descent. The lights of the villages veer into sight and then fly away as we change direction.

The brakes make a grating sound that I can feel in my feet. It is a wonder that they are able to maintain any sort of braking after this long. I am beginning to smell an odd smell though. I do hope it is not the brakes burning themselves out.

It has been raining for a few days. We pass over a river that we would call a stream, I think. This evening yellow, muddy water is rushing over the rocks under the bridge. I guess it really is a river on occasion. The graying dusk casts a blue shadow over everything. It is almost as if we are riding into a fairy world. A fine mist has been hanging in the air since morning. The mountains are in the clouds. The day has had a fairy tale feel to it all day and now it is continuing into the evening.

It is well into dusk and almost pitch black outside. We pass villages bathed in an eerie light from the street lights. Everything seems to close by eight o'clock. Only the bars and clubs stay open. Even they are quiet tonight. Maybe it is the rain. It is a weeknight, although that does not seem to stop the kids from staying out late.

The windows in these old trains are interesting. Some of them open and some of them don't. The ones that don't are always in the compartments that are crowded. Tonight there are two windows that will not close. The one in the corridor is stuck open about an inch. Not bad in the summer, but it was 37 degrees when I left Gura Humorului and that is in the valley. I can only imagine what the temperature is here in the mountains and then add the speed of the train… The window in this compartment doesn't quite close. It appears to be closed but the fellow who is sitting next to it has been trying to close it for about fifteen minutes. He keeps opening it and slamming it. Then he tries jamming it into place with the palm of his hands. They must hurt by now. He took a handkerchief out to use as a cushion but it wasn't worth much. Finally, the conductor came by and together after a short discussion, the conductor opened his official leather pouch and extracted a pad of very thin paper. He tore off a sheet and wadded it into the gap. He and the fellow spend ten minutes stuffing paper into the gaps down one side of the window and then he disappears to make his rounds of the train. He walks from one end to the other of the train. It is much nicer now. I have taken off my jacket and quite comfortable in a sweater. Later the conductor comes back and they add more papers to the window. Now it is getting quite hot in here. Unfortunately, the corridor is freezing by now, so it is either roast or freeze. I am opting for roasting. There doesn't seem to be a happy medium.
We are hurtling down the mountain now. I can feel the brakes engaging as we come into a village, the few lights that are still on whiz by us. We round another bend in the rails. It is impossible not to lean with the train as it winds through the curves.

Tunnels are very strange at night. They are not well lit as they are in the States. Here there are sporadic yellow lights that emit just enough light to add an eerie glow to the carved out walls of the tunnel. It is a long tunnel, this one. The train races through the tunnel. The walls are only inches away. If I stuck my hand out of the train, I could touch them easily.

It feels as if the train is getting away from the engineer as we careen in to the station. We come to a screeching stop. It is most interesting to ride at night in the mountains. You cannot see what is coming or where we have been.

They say that this is the dirtiest and awfulest train in Romania, although it has the best sights. They are right about the conditions. Te bathrooms smelled awful when I got on this train.

I can feel myself being pushed into my seat by gravity as we continue down. It is now three hours since we began this descent. We are winding to the left and down. A train passes us every once in a while. It is easy to be lulled into thinking it is perfectly safe. We are stopping again although I don't see a station. I am leaning nearly into the seat to my right. We must be hanging onto the side of the mountain by a thread. It seems as if I am at about a 75 degrees sitting up instead of 90. An odd feeling. We are slowing almost to a stop but I cannot see why. I feel the gravity again. It is a good thin g we are going slow. I am being pushed back into my seat. It must be quite a grade to feel it so much.

It is only 10:30 and we don't arrive until after 6 in the morning. I wonder what the rest of the ride has to offer. We seem to be on an even keel now – we must be out of the mountains and traveling through Transilvania. And it is the week before Halloween….