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Why is it that the impoverished and supposedly out-of-date railway system of America is so much more pleasant to use than our own? Ours is supposed to be a more modern system, isn't it? ...and more modern means better. After all, if something's more up-to-date it's bound to be an improvement, because history is progress and human life goes on getting better and better, doesn't it? I mean ...just look out of the window.
Constantly one is drawn to the conclusion that the modernisation of Britain's railway system was a fraud. It was all cosmetic ...a con-trick in which something nasty was disguised under a gimcrack, tuppenny-ha'penny, superficial appearance of modernity. Trains are shorter and have many fewer, more uncomfortable seats. If the trains are not actually overcrowded they are oppressively full. Places in these seats are, of course, much more expensive in both actual and relative terms than they used to be.
Out in the suburbs station buildings have been removed, leaving nothing standing above platform level. Even the roof of the footbridge will have been taken off to save a few pounds in maintenance costs. In the large stations all the furniture and fittings have been taken out and there is nowhere to sit down as you try to drink your paper cup of Coca-Cola and eat your Ł2.98 slice of pizza, limp from being reheated in a microwave oven. Never mind, you can go and get a glossy brochure from that young man in the suit standing next to the shiny new Hyundai Sonata that's on display by the Costa Coffee franchise ... by where the seats used to be.
This lovely burnished, beaten metal doorcase is at the exit from Newark Station, New Jersey. In England it would have been ripped out and scrapped sometime in the 1970s, to be replaced by plate-glass doors and a plactic "fascia" featuring the BR "coming and going" logo. In my (admittedly limited) experience of American railways I am always impressed by the extent to which the original structure and fittings of station buildings have been retained and looked after. The public concourse will be tawny with wooden panelling. Art deco lamps hang just over your head, suspended from the ceiling a hundred feet above. The ticket window has a beautiful polished timber frame. The lift ...sorry, elevator... is spacious, with old-fashioned folding doors. Public seating is supplied on a lavish scale, in long rows of high-backed, solid wood benches, like a small cinema auditorium. The trains are comfortable with seats like armchairs. Conductors, usually men of senior years, are solicitous and efficient. I have known two of them provided on a three-coach train.
Always I remind myself just how much I disapprove of all this old-fashioned, inefficient wastefulness and thank my lucky stars that I live in a country where we enjoy the advantage of an efficient modern railway.

A háromnapos kirándulásunk fénypontja a szerdai budapesti kirándulás volt, egész napos vidámparki látogatással. Este hat után mentünk vissza a Nyugatihoz, ahol még egy vacsorát kaptak a gyerekek a Mekiben...

Egy Costa Coffee franchise üzlet a Nyugati téren.

The highlight of our three-day vacation was a full day in Budapest, Hungary, spent at the amuzement park. In the evening we went back to the railway station where the kids also had dinner at the McDonald's.

Costa Coffee at Nyugati Square in Budapest...