Gothenburg > Stockholm
At Gothenburg station, on the south-west coast of Sweden on a showery August afternoon, passengers gather for the 14:12 to Stockholm. The train pulls into the station precisely on time, and the assembled travellers file quietly onboard, helping each other with their bags.
Sweden's countryside is green and leafy. A huge percentage of the population own not just one, but two houses -- the latter known as a "summerhouse", which brings to mind an England that perhaps only existed briefly in the middle of the 20th Century. One populated by the Famous Five, and the Secret Seven. One where every town had a sweet shop, a boarding school, and a retired colonel who wouldn't throw your ball back if an errant lob landed it in his garden.
From the distance of a train window, Sweden appears to resemble that place, and as the high-speed service arcs at 200km/h through the countryside, tilting precariously on corners to stop centripetal force hurling the carriages across a grassy meadow, the mind is free to wander into the sepia-tinged nostalgia of childhood stories.
The carriages themselves are spotlessly clean, sleek and modern. There's internet access, plenty of legroom, and a buffet car that passes just frequently enough to satisfy a sudden craving for a Mars Bar, but not so frequently that the attendant's call (in English, surprisingly) of "sandwiches, refreshments" irritates.
In a car, it's hard to drift into the reverie of a journey -- either because you're driving and need to stay alert, or because you're a passenger of someone that you know, and social convention dictates that you should really be having a conversation. But in a train, no such rules apply. If you're lucky enough to get a window seat, then you can sit back, put on a pair of headphones, and stare through the glass at the landscape passing by.
As Stockholm draws closer, the fields begin to turn into low-rise office buildings, warehouses and retail parks -- the "edgelands" of the city, where few live and little culture is generated, but antivirus companies, logistics firms and catering businesses eke out an isolated existence.
The edgelands slowly morph into the city itself, and soon the train pulls into Stockholm station. When it finally grinds to a halt, precisely on time, the assembled travellers, who have played essentially no part in each other's lives over the past few hours, file quietly off the train, helping each other with their bags.
