Trans-Siberian Train Trouble Tale

June 13, 2021 7:38 AM

Many years ago (probably more than 20), I read a non-fiction travel story by someone non-Russian speaking traveling on the Trans-Siberian Express. He and the matron of train car did not get along and she purposefully misled him about how long the train was stopping at a station, and when he got off to stretch his legs, the train left without him. He managed to find someone to drive him to the next station on the route, and he surreptitiously reboarded the train as if nothing happened. Does anyone know where I might have read that?

I thought it might have been Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar, but a reread showed that it was not that book.

posted by ShooBoo to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

I think this might be in another Theroux book, possibly Ghost Train to the Eastern Star , which is a mid-2000s follow up to Bazaar.

If not that, check out his China by rail books.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 7:50 AM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

This sounds like Theroux’s account of a fellow passenger named, if I recall correctly, Duffil. I remember his using the phrase “being Duffilled” in several other books, as if he were hoping it would gain wider acceptance. I can’t remember in which book the story first appeared, though — sorry!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 8:23 AM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

The story about Duffill being left behind after the guard shrugs when asked how long the train will stop for is in chapter 2 of The Great Railway Bazaar, but while Molesworth suggests that he could catch up with the train by taking a taxi, he doesn't actually do so.
posted by offog at 9:00 AM on June 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

This could be in All The Right Places by Brad Newsham.
posted by Rash at 9:03 AM on June 13, 2021

It’s a while since I read it so I cannot attest to that specific story, but Eric Newby’s The Big Red Train Ride has several anecdotes of struggles with various officials, on the train and off. Even if it’s not the book you were thinking of it’s worth a read especially if you liked Theroux’s railway books
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 9:12 AM on June 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Duffil's story is in the Great Railway Bazaar, but that's not what I'm thinking of. It's something that happened to the writer.
posted by ShooBoo at 9:31 AM on June 13, 2021

Not directly related - but the 1980 British TV drama "Caught on a Train" (by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Peter Duffell) uses the rather the same ruse"
posted by rongorongo at 10:28 PM on June 13, 2021