A tale of two train journeys: To London and back during a pandemic

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL — Anyone keen to marvel at humankind’s capacity to adapt to new surroundings need only take a ride on the Eurostar.

In this netherworld 75 meters below the sea, travelers have quickly adjusted to the eccentricities of pandemic-enforced social distancing.

After being brusquely corralled onto the train at London St. Pancras station to avoid a pile-up on the travelators, my fellow passengers and I found ourselves spaced out as far as was possible on a train carrying determined holidaymakers to the Continent in August. The roughly 30 travelers in my carriage appeared to be steadfastly ignoring the fact they now faced a two-week coronavirus quarantine if they return to the U.K.

Three sharply dressed Eurostar officials patrolled the gangway to make sure masks stayed on faces. The meditative murmur of a grandmother entertaining her bored grandson, and two Dutch-speaking friends chatting on their way home, was broken only by the disconcerting sound of a sneeze.

This was travel returned to a kind of normal – albeit with a distinctly clinical feel.

Nothing could be more different than the ghost train I took out of Brussels on the day Belgium announced a full lockdown back on March 17.

As I hurtled through the Wallonian countryside back to the embrace of family in London, I stared out of the window at the pink and orange evening sky to a landscape that oozed fear and foreboding.

I was one of only three people in my carriage, and yet I took far more sanitary precautions than I did on the return leg, wearing plastic gloves and dousing my fold-down table in buckets of anti-bacterial spray.

Emerging into the heart of London, where pubs and restaurants were heaving with customers, I pompously imagined myself as Cassandra from the Greek myths, the prophetess whose dire predictions went unheeded.

“It’s just a matter of time until what happened in Brussels happens here,” I told my British friends, mostly to cover up the embarrassment that I had run back home to avoid spending three weeks in my own company. That’s how long I guessed I’d be staying at the time.

Five months on, my Eurostar journey back to Brussels suggested many of us are facing the prospect of a second lockdown with a more tempered sense of fear, perhaps because society has instead outsourced its fretting to officious rules on wearing masks while cycling and Passenger Locator Forms.

One of the main concerns for my fellow travelers, notably the disheartened grandson, was the lack of Wi-Fi. An email informing customers of changes to their Eurostar experience said that had been temporarily switched off for all bar premium passengers, alongside extra hygiene measures and a pause in the catering service.

A few months ago the sight of hundreds of masked faces in a Eurostar departure lounge would have stoked nothing but panic. Now it inspired a sense of civic solidarity.

At passport control, an elderly man with a cane slowly pulled down his mask to allow the officer to see his face. His look seemed to say: Yes we’ve adapted to this new world, but how much longer can it go on?

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