railroad trips and museums

On Board the Eastern and Oriental Express: 14-17 February 1999

(Click on the pictures below to obtain larger images, which take longer to download.) Photographs © George P. Landow may be copied without written permission for any noncommercial use — for hobbies, education, and so on. If you have any additional information on the locomotives or rolling stock in these pictures, please feel free to send it along to me at george@landow.com; pictures are welcome, too. GPL)

(Left) Before setting out for the train station downtown, which, though it is in the middle of Singapore, is Malaysian territory. (Middle) Ruth standing at the door of the railroad car in which we traveled from Singapore to Bangkok (we were moved to a larger cabin for the trip from Bangkok to Chang Mai).

(Right middle) In our luxurious, if tightly packed, compartment. (Right) One of three dining cars, in this case, the Singapura; each had its own decor.

Ruth and George in the dining car on our first evening on board. [Photo by Edwin Jones.]

(Left) George in the library part of the saloon car against a map of the Eastern and Oriental Express route. [Photo by Ruth] (Right) Passing through flooded country on the way to Penang, at which we stopped during the first day of the trip.

The young woman who performed traditional Thai dances in the Saloon Car on the second night of our journey -- while the train was moving and lurching.

When we returned from dinner and the dance performance on that second night, we found that our cabin steward had placed these flower ornaments on each of our bunks after making them up; the left-hand picture includes the E&O enamel ring box we had just purchased. (The next day, when we visited the River Kwai, the train manager suggested that we might wish to bring the floral offerings with us to leave on the graves at the WW II cemetery.)

When we boarded the train in Bangkok, we had a new, much larger compartment in which we could now sleep side-by-side rather than in upper and lower bunks. (Right) Ruth puts away her clothing.

(Left) The beds after the steward had made them and placed a new (to us) kind of flowers on the sheets. (Middle) Ruth in the easy chair, which transformed into a bed. (Right) The locomotives that pulled the Eastern and Oriental Express resting at Lampang.

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