Andrew Miller: Train travel provides unique experiences of world we live in

When you slide an ultrasound across a crowded pregnant abdomen, you hear the scratchy blood flow — “weeoooh weeoooh weeoooh.”

The radio waves are reflected by the heartbeats of mother and child. Their parallel circulations are delivering oxygen and nutrients, collecting waste at all stops, and swapping goods at the placenta.

Maybe that whooshing soundtrack of the womb, with the constant gentle rocking, is why I like trains. Unlike aeroplanes, which catapult us into the most boring, lifeless place near earth — 32,000 feet in the air.

No one, except perhaps an engineer, alights from a Boeing saying “well, that was a highlight — I wish it had gone on a bit longer”.

Trains, on the other hand, immerse us in the landscape.

They wind along the arterial tracks of the earth, across rivers and through mountain tunnels with sinuous, insistent urgency. Trains promise an adventure worth having.

At 6am we stood, rooted in shock, on the concourse of the Mumbai railway station.

Surrounded by touts, bustling confusion and thick, hot air we eventually made our way to a ticket booth where, with the innocent arrogance of youth, we bought the cheapest tickets to New Delhi.

Like the brothers in Wes Anderson’s wonderful film The Darjeeling Limited, we were fish out of water. Unlike them, we had no style.

It took about 22 hours to cover the 1300km between those two seething metropolises, in the bursting carriages of the most economical grade of travel.

As we clattered north on that receding afternoon, they stopped to deliver mail for the tight tenancies and small businesses of dozens of villages, towns and cities with their own lights, restaurants, dramas and miracles.

We were not comfortable — we were not supposed to be, for once in our fortunate lives.

You often see the wrong side of the tracks from a train, but the flip-book animation view is always interesting, sometimes incredible, and fellow travellers have their own quirks.

The trip from Paris to Munich takes about six hours and leaves from the Gare de l’Est, where the fellow who expertly lifted the camera from around my neck politely called “merci, monsieur!” as he melted into the crowd.

This train seemed a good choice for an overnight run with the Eurail pass, as it saved money on accommodation, but not enough for a new camera.

A full moon threw long, black-and-white shadows across snowy fields and hamlets between complicated, yellow-lit cities. Every other vehicle defers to trains, which only pause for one another or to impatiently exchange passengers.

I shared the carriage with a flamboyant young German.

He was very hungover, and ticketless. The weary conductor was having none of his pantomime searching of pockets, so at Stuttgart, the black-booted Bahnpolizei and their eager German shepherds dropped by. Against all sensible advice, I paid for his ticket.

Everyone present — even the dogs — understood the promised refund from his alleged sister in Munich was a fantasy. Shockingly, she was waiting when we arrived — only too happy to pay me, force-feed us hot pretzels, and box her brother’s sorry ears.

I fell in love, said goodbye, and strode out into the bright possibility of early morning in a new city.

Beijing’s 400km/h maglev dragster could not be more different to the mountain-river chasing Flam railway in Norway — but no train that arrives can disappoint.

Australia has some reasonable suburban networks which can provide adventure.

Our sparse long-distance train services though are orientated to luxe tourism.

Very expensive, relative to a week in Bali. Beautiful landscape, but that ticket would buy a lot of nasi goreng.

I had to fly to Darwin this week, thereby missing every nuance of the outback.

During those hours, I closed my eyes and relived a late afternoon ride through Agra, glimpsing the Taj Mahal across the river. The train whistled proudly, shouting “look at this place that I love”.