Sulzano Station — Sunday

 

There is birdsong and, I think, the chirp of cicadas. There is just one track and one platform at Sulzano railway station by Lake Iseo in Lombardy. It is Sunday afternoon. There is no ticket barrier, no ticket office and, blessedly, I can hear the birdsong because there are no announcements. Small groups of people are on the platform, mostly families after a day out. They may be returning home to one of the small towns or villages along the single-track route. It runs from the alpine town of Edolo in the north 60 miles to the city of Brescia in the south. If the next train is southbound, it will come from the left. A couple of 100 metres beyond the ends of the platform on level crossings that will indicate that a train is approaching.

There is something special about a country railway station. It is familiar to its users. They know the trains and need not bother with a timetable. If they are not tourists, they probably know each other — Sulzano is a small town. The station at Sulzano is a quiet, sunny, informal place for travellers.

At each end of the line the line, the driver will get out and trudge the length of the three-carriage train and set off back up or down the line. For the waiting passengers, there are no such limits. From the southern terminus at Brescia, they can catch a train east to Verona, Venice and Trieste. It will only take them an hour from Brescia to get to Milan, from where they can get a train south to Palermo in Sicily or north to Munich and onwards into eastern and northern Europe.

As Marcel Proust wrote, “The most intoxicating romance in the lover’s library — the railway timetable.”

A bell rings. The northern level crossing closes to cars and the streamlined nose of the dark green diesel train appears, small at first, growing larger. When it stops, about 10 people get off and the same number get on. The train departs. There is silence again and yes, I can hear cicadas.

I travelled with the excellent  Great Rail Journeys