ODDITIES
monthly short fiction esoterica by Sasha Myshkina
APRIL 2025
“THE PAN-GLOBAL RAILWAY”
I still remember the day when they announced the opening of the Pan-Global Railway.
It was a feat of engineering and technology, millions of miles of rail-road track spanning the entire globe, connecting countries and cities in what many called the closest the human race has ever come to achieving world peace. The project had taken over forty years to complete from its conception, and when the inaugural journey took place from New York to Shanghai, the entire world cheered.
In the many years since the railway opened, the world has indeed changed, although whether or not in the way the designers had anticipated is debatable. The train carriages, once top of the line, are now old and clunky by modern standards. Some of the trains being used across central Eurasia are still Soviet stock from the section of the line that was previously the Trans-Siberian Railway; one of the many rail-lines absorbed into the Pan-Global. A lot of the branches that travelled through the tropics had been retro-fitted with air conditioning, but you’d be lucky if it actually worked. Sections seemed to always be closed off due to civil conflicts, and it wasn’t uncommon for the trains to be held at border check-points for hours as passports were stamped.
What attracted most to the Pan-Global, however, was its cost. With tickets being much cheaper than any airline, most were willing to endure the longer travel time. Especially in the branches where high-speed rail was used, airline companies sued for loss in ticket sales. It gave the layperson an ability to travel overseas in a train that would take them to their destination right from their hometown. It was a window of opportunity for millions, many of whom had never even left their own country. It made our vast, colossal planet seem much smaller.
My own journeys with the Pan-Global were certainly not glamorous, but they always seemed to be the backdrop to a unique cross-section of human life. Every trip on the Pan-Global seemed to reveal a perfectly diverse cross-section of the human population, now no longer restricted by country or language or nationality. The safety and information booklets were the thickness of a short novel for a reason – they were printed in every language.
On a week-long journey from Moscow to Miami, I shared borscht soup with the old woman in the sleeper cabin with me. She got off at Irkutsk, where she told me she was going to see her granddaughter. It was snowing heavily as we transversed the vast continent, and between my shaky Russian and her faltering English, we managed to find solidarity in our shared interest in knitting. The snowy forests outside of the window were quiet, peaceful, endless. I felt every mile of the vast country. I fell asleep as the train stopped in Irkutsk and when I woke up she was gone, but she had left me a small gift – a golden crucifix on the side-table, with a small note wishing me luck in Russian. I am not by any means religious, but it was such a kind gesture that I wore it for the rest of my journey.
When the train crossed the bridge over to Alaska, I was hit with the quiet, yet powerful, realisation that a journey that must have seemed so impossible to so many was now as simple as buying a one-way ticket. I had never seen so much frozen ocean in my life, on either side, stretching for miles as the train crossed the contraption of metal and concrete that seemed all too delicate to support its weight. The seam of the standard view of the world map had always hidden just how close the two landmasses were, and my opinion of the two countries’ distance was equally skewed, but as the train crossed from one to the other, all politics and history fell away and the two countries felt like one.
The train stopped in Fairbanks, where I transferred to the American line of the Pan-Global, which thankfully had been updated to more or less high-speed trains. From here, the journey to Miami only took about a day and a half. The kinds of passengers that got on as we stopped in places across the Midwest were different – more outgoing, louder, chattier. I sat behind a family of five that were going on vacation in Florida, and the children kept running up and down the train aisle. I found it equally annoying and endearing, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the now-obsolete road-trips my own family used to go on many years ago.
The man sitting opposite me on the stretch from St Louis to Atlanta offered me home-made biscuits that his wife had made. He said that this was his commute, twice a day every day. Two hours in each direction. He must have seen the shocked expression on my face, but he explained that his son lived in St Louis, and even as he had to move out of the city because of rising rent costs, he still wanted to keep his old job across the street of where his son now worked.
I took a plane back from Miami – a necessity, given that the rail network didn’t yet cross the Atlantic. I had kept reading about plans regarding a proposed transatlantic tunnel, but they never seemed to come into fruition – too many complicated international agreements and engineering logistics. Although I did appreciate the convenience and speed of the airplane, part of me couldn’t help but miss falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the train as it chugged into the night.
I once met someone who lived on the Pan-Global. He had become a transit hermit, as they came to be known by the workers on the trains. He would simply ride the Eurasia branch of the railway back and forth, hiding from the conductors if necessary. The journey was so long and passed through so many different countries that it was rare the same conductor checked the same carriage twice, and those who did had come to know him by name anyway. He had his own sleeper cabin that he had set up like a living space, acquiring knick-knacks and junk left behind by others. I met him once, on a short trip from Frankfurt to London. He told me that he had been living on the train for almost six years now; that after losing everything, the only thing he could think of finding comfort in was long, endless nights on the railway track, becoming anonymous amongst the crowds of passengers constantly filtering on and off. He said I seemed like a kind-hearted person and gave me a trinket of goodwill from his lost-and-found collection – a single earring that he had found under a seat after the train stopped in Krakow.
I now live in a high-rise on the outskirts of a large city that overlooks a train-line. Even though the floor number is high enough that the loudness of the passing trains doesn’t bother me, I can still feel the distant, low rumble as they pass by. The tracks are mostly used by commuter trains going in and out of the city centre, but every now and again a Pan-Global train passes by. I can tell them apart immediately – the older carriages sound different, louder and clunkier. They pass by slowly, with an intentionality that bears the weight of every country the train has passed through. The little yellow windows in the distance sometimes show silhouettes of the global travellers, sleeping, reading, watching the incoming city pass by. I can’t help but wonder whether or not this is their final destination or just another stop on a long journey; a fleeting moment on a voyage criss-crossing the entire world.
It was a feat of engineering and technology, millions of miles of rail-road track spanning the entire globe, connecting countries and cities in what many called the closest the human race has ever come to achieving world peace. The project had taken over forty years to complete from its conception, and when the inaugural journey took place from New York to Shanghai, the entire world cheered.
In the many years since the railway opened, the world has indeed changed, although whether or not in the way the designers had anticipated is debatable. The train carriages, once top of the line, are now old and clunky by modern standards. Some of the trains being used across central Eurasia are still Soviet stock from the section of the line that was previously the Trans-Siberian Railway; one of the many rail-lines absorbed into the Pan-Global. A lot of the branches that travelled through the tropics had been retro-fitted with air conditioning, but you’d be lucky if it actually worked. Sections seemed to always be closed off due to civil conflicts, and it wasn’t uncommon for the trains to be held at border check-points for hours as passports were stamped.
What attracted most to the Pan-Global, however, was its cost. With tickets being much cheaper than any airline, most were willing to endure the longer travel time. Especially in the branches where high-speed rail was used, airline companies sued for loss in ticket sales. It gave the layperson an ability to travel overseas in a train that would take them to their destination right from their hometown. It was a window of opportunity for millions, many of whom had never even left their own country. It made our vast, colossal planet seem much smaller.
My own journeys with the Pan-Global were certainly not glamorous, but they always seemed to be the backdrop to a unique cross-section of human life. Every trip on the Pan-Global seemed to reveal a perfectly diverse cross-section of the human population, now no longer restricted by country or language or nationality. The safety and information booklets were the thickness of a short novel for a reason – they were printed in every language.
On a week-long journey from Moscow to Miami, I shared borscht soup with the old woman in the sleeper cabin with me. She got off at Irkutsk, where she told me she was going to see her granddaughter. It was snowing heavily as we transversed the vast continent, and between my shaky Russian and her faltering English, we managed to find solidarity in our shared interest in knitting. The snowy forests outside of the window were quiet, peaceful, endless. I felt every mile of the vast country. I fell asleep as the train stopped in Irkutsk and when I woke up she was gone, but she had left me a small gift – a golden crucifix on the side-table, with a small note wishing me luck in Russian. I am not by any means religious, but it was such a kind gesture that I wore it for the rest of my journey.
When the train crossed the bridge over to Alaska, I was hit with the quiet, yet powerful, realisation that a journey that must have seemed so impossible to so many was now as simple as buying a one-way ticket. I had never seen so much frozen ocean in my life, on either side, stretching for miles as the train crossed the contraption of metal and concrete that seemed all too delicate to support its weight. The seam of the standard view of the world map had always hidden just how close the two landmasses were, and my opinion of the two countries’ distance was equally skewed, but as the train crossed from one to the other, all politics and history fell away and the two countries felt like one.
The train stopped in Fairbanks, where I transferred to the American line of the Pan-Global, which thankfully had been updated to more or less high-speed trains. From here, the journey to Miami only took about a day and a half. The kinds of passengers that got on as we stopped in places across the Midwest were different – more outgoing, louder, chattier. I sat behind a family of five that were going on vacation in Florida, and the children kept running up and down the train aisle. I found it equally annoying and endearing, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the now-obsolete road-trips my own family used to go on many years ago.
The man sitting opposite me on the stretch from St Louis to Atlanta offered me home-made biscuits that his wife had made. He said that this was his commute, twice a day every day. Two hours in each direction. He must have seen the shocked expression on my face, but he explained that his son lived in St Louis, and even as he had to move out of the city because of rising rent costs, he still wanted to keep his old job across the street of where his son now worked.
I took a plane back from Miami – a necessity, given that the rail network didn’t yet cross the Atlantic. I had kept reading about plans regarding a proposed transatlantic tunnel, but they never seemed to come into fruition – too many complicated international agreements and engineering logistics. Although I did appreciate the convenience and speed of the airplane, part of me couldn’t help but miss falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the train as it chugged into the night.
I once met someone who lived on the Pan-Global. He had become a transit hermit, as they came to be known by the workers on the trains. He would simply ride the Eurasia branch of the railway back and forth, hiding from the conductors if necessary. The journey was so long and passed through so many different countries that it was rare the same conductor checked the same carriage twice, and those who did had come to know him by name anyway. He had his own sleeper cabin that he had set up like a living space, acquiring knick-knacks and junk left behind by others. I met him once, on a short trip from Frankfurt to London. He told me that he had been living on the train for almost six years now; that after losing everything, the only thing he could think of finding comfort in was long, endless nights on the railway track, becoming anonymous amongst the crowds of passengers constantly filtering on and off. He said I seemed like a kind-hearted person and gave me a trinket of goodwill from his lost-and-found collection – a single earring that he had found under a seat after the train stopped in Krakow.
I now live in a high-rise on the outskirts of a large city that overlooks a train-line. Even though the floor number is high enough that the loudness of the passing trains doesn’t bother me, I can still feel the distant, low rumble as they pass by. The tracks are mostly used by commuter trains going in and out of the city centre, but every now and again a Pan-Global train passes by. I can tell them apart immediately – the older carriages sound different, louder and clunkier. They pass by slowly, with an intentionality that bears the weight of every country the train has passed through. The little yellow windows in the distance sometimes show silhouettes of the global travellers, sleeping, reading, watching the incoming city pass by. I can’t help but wonder whether or not this is their final destination or just another stop on a long journey; a fleeting moment on a voyage criss-crossing the entire world.