Touring Europe’s capitals by rail in the 1980s
Introduction
In the summer of 1984 I did an Interrail trip with a university friend.
I took a notebook with me on the journey and wrote in it each day. I recorded some details of the trains we took, impressions of the people we met and thoughts about the places we saw.
Here (link below) is the notebook fully transcribed into a diary for the first time. I have illustrated it with tickets, maps and some of the photographs (many in black and white) that I took in 1984. I have included some images obtained via Creative Commons to fill in some of the gaps. I also have added my thoughts from “forty years later”.
The Interail Ticket
Back in 1984, the Interrail ticket was valid for a month and entitled the holder to free travel on all the railway systems of Western Europe and on some of the systems of Eastern Europe (then behind the iron curtain) too.
In theory, the tickets (which were not valid for travel in one’s home country) were available to anyone under 26. However, it seemed the main market was the wealthier university and college students of Western Europe who had the funds available and the time to spare.
The photograph on the promotional leaflet with its well dressed travellers and national flags displayed on their rucksacks gave you the general idea. A similar ticket, Eurail, was made available to young Americans.
In 2026, Interrail is still going strong. Thankfully, the tickets now come in a variety of different duration and pricing options and are aimed at all age groups.
Summer 1984
By the end of June 1984, I had completed my second year at University. I was twenty years old and apart from two brief trips to France had no experience of travelling abroad. Suspecting (wrongly as it turned out) that the coming summer vacation would be my last chance to go on an extended holiday, I planned to do an Interrail trip with one of my closest college friends.
As neither of us were particularly wealthy, we decided to concentrate on working during July and August to raise some cash and then travel in September. In the end, unable to get a job in recession-hit Lancashire easily, I spent most of my time staying with my uncle in Hampton Court and working at Selfridge’s Department Store in Oxford Street.
By the end of August, I had accumulated some savings but, having budgeted around £100 for the Interrail ticket itself, I was not confident of being able to afford to stay out of the country for long. My friend was in the same boat, but we resolved to go for it anyway.
We decided to buy the tickets to run from September 2 to October 1. We planned initially to be away for three weeks. We would return to the UK around September 23rd, well in time for start of the new university term.
The Plan
One of the most popular things to do with an Interrail ticket in the 1980s was to use it to travel from the UK down to Greece and then spend a couple of weeks at a beach hotel before heading home again.
My friend and I considered this when planning our own trip, but we decided we wanted to see a little more of Europe. The problem was that we had very little cash for food let alone hostel accommodation in big cities. So we hatched out a cunning plan.
We would see the sights of one city by day and then, for most of the time, travel overnight to the next city. This would save time travelling during the day and it would skip accommodation costs at night.
The sleeping would not be done not on expensive (supplement payable) sleeper carriages, but on the ordinary long distance trains that ran overnight and had seating compartments that were included in the price of our ticket. We would wash in the station toilets and on the trains with soap and shampoo brought from home. We would also pack plenty of water purification and vitamin tablets.
The schedule for the initial three weeks took a bit of putting together and that was mostly left to me. It was a labour of love and was the result of many hours spent with the “Thomas Cook Continental Timetable”. The goal was always to link city pairs that would give long stretches and the best chance to sleep.
That was the plan, anyway….
The Diary
On Sunday September 2nd 1984, my parents drove me to Kirkham for the afternoon train to London Euston. I had arranged to meet my friend, who lived in Surrey, at London Victoria in the early evening. My diary starts on that train to London.
There is a page for each day of the trip. There is a link at the end of each page to the next so that the whole journey can be followed in sequence.
| Sunday 2 September 1984 | London |
| Monday 3 September 1984 | Brussels |
| Tuesday 4 September 1984 | Amsterdam |
| Wednesday 5 September 1984 | Paris |
| Thursday 6 September 1984 | en route |
| Friday 7 September 1984 | Lisbon |
| Saturday 8 September 1984 | Madrid |
| Sunday 9 September 1984 | Nice |
| Monday 10 September 1984 | Venice |
| Tuesday 11 September 1984 | Rome |
| Wednesday 12 September 1984 | Pompeii |
| Thursday 13 September 1984 | Munich |
| Friday 14 September 1984 | Hamburg |
| Saturday 15 September 1984 | West Berlin |
| Sunday 16 September 1984 | Copenhagen |
| Monday 17 September 1984 | Stockholm |
| Tuesday 18 September 1984 | Oslo |
| Wednesday 19 September 1984 | en route |
| Thursday 20 September 1984 | Luxembourg |
| Friday 21 September 1984 | Vienna |
| Saturday 22 September 1984 | Budapest |
| Sunday 23 September 1984 | Zurich |
| Monday 24 September 1984 | Bern |
| Tuesday 25 September 1984 | Florence |
| Wednesday 26 September 1984 | Monaco |
| Thursday 27 September 1984 | London |
