Moonlight Express: Rediscovering the lost romance and rhythm of slow travel

The lost romance of unhurried journeys across continents comes alive as Monisha Rajesh hops on and off multiple sleeper trains, crossing their names off her wish list at the end of each voyage.  In the process, she draws the reader into not just the train and the intricacies of its sleeper class, but also the people, the character of cities it passes, and of course the surrounding countryside as it whizzes by.  It was a delight to travel on Finland’s flagship train, the Santa Claus Express, into the heart of the Arctic Circle and Lapland just before Christmas; experience Berlin’s Carnival of Cultures; almost taste the aromatic street food in Ankara; and feel her acute disappointment when she finds that the dining car — a space she loves — had been discontinued on the Dacia between Vienna and Bucharest. 

Moonlight Express covers 11 journeys and multiple sleeper trains, undertaken over a period of three years. They range from Austria’s ÖBB Nightjet, India’s Shalimar Express, Scotland’s Caledonian Sleeper, and Peru’s Andean Express.  An avid locomotive enthusiast, this is her fourth book on the magic of train travel. Her first, in 2012, was Around India

in 80 Trains.  For a solo travelling British-Indian, it would have taken a fair bit of courage and a true passion to have done this. 

Monisha’s writing is a reminder of the unique place railways used to occupy in a world before budget airlines, as the lifeblood of a nation, connecting people and places affordably. They were once a source of national pride with certain iconic stations as architectural wonders.  We forget, but they continue to provide employment to millions. The Indian Railways is the second-highest employer in the country with the fourth-largest network in the world, of which 98 per cent runs on electricity. Given the need to consume clean energy, this is truly remarkable. Indian Railways notched their highest revenue in FY25, of ~2.7 trillion — how many zeros is that?! Goes to show that the days of train travel are far from over, and a resurgence is a distinct possibility. 

In several parts of the world, especially Europe, many are making a conscious choice to travel by train, even when it takes longer and is not always cheaper. Climate change, and the role trains can play in mitigating it, is one of the threads in Moonlight Express. Monisha often returns to it as she looks out of a moving window, catching sight of an enormous dump yard in Romania dedicated to British and Chinese waste, or over conversations with like-minded co-passengers. 

She meets a member of the movement called Back on Track, which consists of volunteers campaigning to promote cross-border night trains within Europe.  She uses a global hotel chain that provides a discounted rate to guests when they travel between two of their hotels by train. One senses that there is a growing population of individuals looking to do their bit to minimise their carbon footprint while opting for a more measured pace of travel.  Trains provide that freedom — pack what you wish, meet and interact with people, walk around, visit the dining car to have a reindeer meatball soup and a few drinks, or just spend time untangling one’s thoughts — in contrast to being strapped tight between two passengers, fighting for armrest real estate. In every chapter, Monisha brings alive the wonderful opportunity of trains enabling us to breathe easy and experience the slow life in comfort, while moderating climate change by that tiny bit. 

The second thread that Monisha returns to time and again is the situation in Gaza, the daily genocide and its atrocities —her distress over the death of Palestinian poet and academic Refaat Alareer, while travelling through Finland, chatting with Min, an 18-year-old who has escaped the coup in Myanmar.  On her final adventure on the luxurious Andean Express in Peru, she receives news of the completion of an investigation into the death of five-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, pelted with 335 machine gun bullets and then flattened with a bulldozer. Monisha breaks down in anguish. She is a travel writer fearless in capturing her emotions beyond the joys of encountering new places and people. 

As Monisha wends her way on two parallel tracks, there is humour and lessons for future sleeper travellers — what you must avoid on a middle berth so as not to be trapped in a very ungainly position in full view of your compartment mates.  Or the nuances of negotiating a space smaller than the spare toilet at home with six strangers. What makes each adventure exciting are her ‘railway unions’ with old friends Jamie and Marc, or inviting locomotive novice Ditta, a mother of two who had not taken a break in 10 years, on a “me time” trip together.  Or a “meet up on the tracks” with Deniz in Turkey and Julian at a station on the shores of Lake Titicaca — virtual friends becoming real. Each train ride is an exciting story. 

Monisha Rajesh is a refreshing voice in a genre long dominated by White men. Her storytelling is distinctive — evocative in her ability to capture the nuances of a location, passionate in her love of trains, and emotional about cultures, global issues, her children, and often vulnerable in her personal struggles and feelings. As one journeys with Monisha, you realise that not all trains are equal. Not all of them chug along.  They canter, sway, brake, lurch, swing, and sometimes even roll. Nuances best understood lying flat on one’s back on a moonlight express.

 

The reviewer is a freelance non-fiction writer