Missing the Train to Leningrad

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it. (GK Chesterton)

When my friend Ron and I left University we went to work for a year in a fish finger factory in Hammerfest, Norway, the most northerly town in the world.

In those days we called it ‘dropping out’. Now it has a more respectable name i.e. ‘a gap year’, but it comes down to the same thing – taking time out before entering the real world of employment, marriage, mortgages and children.

The idea was to earn enough money to then go travelling. When the snow melted and the sun could be seen in the sky again it was our intention to make our way back home via Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. However the highlight was to be a trip to what is now called St Petersburg but in those days was still known as Leningrad and the Iron Curtain was still a real obstacle for those wanting to travel there.

To travel there you couldn’t just fire up the internet and book accommodation and flights, no, it was much more complicated. You had to take an organised trip which could only be booked through an accredited travel agency. And it all had to be done by post.

We found such an agency in Helsinki who arranged the trip for us – an overnight sleeper train to Leningrad with a night in a hotel followed by a return sleeper to Helsinki. Tickets to the ballet and the circus were included as well as breakfast at the hotel.

To arrange this we had to send not only the money to Helsinki but also our passports – which they held until our arrival. This necessitated crossing the border between northern Norway and Finland with only a letter from the Finnish Consul in Hammerfest to vouch for us. In the event this turned out to be a completely open border and no one asked for our passports.

We arrived in Helsinki with days to spare but as the train to Leningrad didn’t leave until 22.45 we had time to kill on the day of our departure so we decided to go to the cinema. I remember the film well. Starring Robert Redford and George Segal its American name was ‘The Hot Rock’ but in the UK it was distributed under the name ‘How to Steal a Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons’. It was a great film but it had a disastrous effect on our trip.

As we exited the cinema we checked our train tickets and to our absolute horror noticed that the departure time for the train was 20.45, not 22.45. We had been using a 24 hour clock for months but we had both made the elementary mistake of confusing 8 o’clock with 10 o’clock.

In a desperate hope that the train had somehow been delayed we made our way to the, by now deserted, station and confirmed that our train had indeed departed on time.

Imagine our anguish and frustration. All that thought and time and effort that had gone into planning the trip and which now counted for nought. All that eager anticipation which was seeping away as we observed the empty platforms. The level of our distress was off the scale.

The next day we turned up to the travel agency as soon as it opened in the vain hope that they could do something for us. And to our amazement they could. Within the hour they had booked us on the daytime train to Leningrad. Our hotel accommodation and return journey were safeguarded – all we had to do was to get to the station on time.

In the event we missed the ballet but managed to see the circus and also the Hermitage Museum. There, because of our long hair, we were the object of some amusement for the babushkas guarding the works of art.

And on the crowded tram on the way back to the train we were observed by an imposing looking  soldier in an impressive uniform, he must have been a colonel at least, who after a while, indicated our long hair and said in a highly accented voice and with an amused smile, “The hair, it is necessary for the hitch hiking. Yes?”

If only we could have salvaged our trip by hitch hiking to Leningrad after we had missed the train.

[August 2023]