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Looking for novels about the train (discuss.online)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/books

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I have this intense craving for a novel about riding the train basically. My issue is I don’t want it to just be a setting amidst a larger plot. No train murder stories, no regular stories that just happen to take place on a train.

I need the novel to be wholly about the experience of riding the train, maybe across the US maybe just between two cities whatever. It just has to focus on the experience the train provides and the spirit of public transport.

Insane how hard this is for me to find maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Trains are so beautiful it’s a group of people who have never met and they’re all connected through experience, locked in to a direction literally bound by the railway. There is God in the railway. Infinite potential to be tapped in this hyper specific idea.

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[–] BillTongg 3 points 5 days ago

Hmm, that is tricky, isn't it? Of course there are many travelogues about train journeys and many novels where the train journey is incidental. I can even think of a radio show on the BBC, Alexei Sayle's Strangers on a Train, where the presenter takes train journeys and talks to people he meets about their journeys and their lives:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0013zmp?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

However, novels like the one you are looking for are elusive and nothing comes to mind. For what it's worth, here's a list of train-related books from Goodreads, which might give you some ideas:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/89742.Tales_on_Track_Trains_in_Fiction