The Man in #Seat_Sixty-One . . .
Who is the Man in #Seat_61?
I’m Mark Smith, and I live in an English village in deepest Buckinghamshire, with Dutch wife Nicolette, our son & daughter, cats Phoenix & Rosie & Pip the crazy cockapoo.
Many years ago I ran away from Oxford to join the circus - or as we called it in those days, British Rail. Starting out in rural Kent on what was then BR’s Southern Region, I was the Station Manager for London’s Charing Cross, London Bridge & Cannon Street stations in the early to mid 1990s. After a spell as the Customer Relations Manager for two large UK train companies, I worked for the Office of the Rail Regulator and later the Strategic Rail Authority, ending up at the Department for Transport in charge of the team regulating fares & ticketing on the British rail network. Since 2007 I have run seat 61 full-time, as (a) updating it has become a full-time job and (b) it’s more fun than real work.
I’ve travelled the world on trains & ships and I’ve been on the other side of the counter too - in university vacations I worked for Transalpino in London, a European rail ticketing agency issuing tickets and advising travel agents on train travel across Europe. Now I can share that knowledge online. See awards & press room.
Why ’Seat 61’?
Zaharoff, the notorious arms dealer, would always book compartment 7 on the Orient Express to or from Istanbul. On Eurostar, I would always request seat 61 (in first class cars 7, 8, 11 or 12 in a classic Eurostar or in cars 3 or 14 in the new e320) as it lines up with the window, one of a cosy pair of seats facing each other across a table complete with table lamp, like an old Pullman car. It became a tradition, and I’ve left London in seat 61 en route to destinations such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Albania, Tunisia (via Lille & Marseille), Marrakech (via Paris, Madrid & Algeciras), Istanbul (via Vienna, Budapest & Transylvania), Ukraine & the Crimea, Aleppo, Damascus, Petra & Aqaba, and even Moscow, Vladivostok, Tokyo & Nagasaki via the Trans-Siberian Railway.
What does the site aim to do?
Many people want to cut their carbon footprint or are simply fed up with the stress of flying - and a significant number of people are afraid of flying or medically restricted from doing so. However, information on alternatives to flying is often difficult to find through a travel industry obsessed with flights.
So this site aims to inspire people to do something more rewarding with their travel opportunities than schlepping to an airport, getting on a soulless airliner and missing all the world has to offer. It then sets out to enable people to take train or ferry by giving the confidence and know-how to book their trip themselves, or call the right people to book it for them at affordable prices.
#train #transport_ferroviaire #tout_sur_le_train #Mark_Smith
