The incredible honour I received after travelling with the same train company since 1999

Daily Mail​

a day ago

When British rail travel fan Steve Calladine got the call to say that his decades of criss-crossing the globe via rail had earned him an unusual accolade, he assumed it was a scam.
The 67-year-old Liverpudlian, who now lives in Teignmouth, Devon, is digital booking platform Trainline's most faithful customer - having made his first trip with the company in 1999, 'when you had to ring up and tickets were sent in the post'.
After enduring a spate of frustrating junk emails, he assumed the news that he'd had a room named after him at the company's London HQ - thanks to booking thousands of trips over 26 years - was a wind-up.
He explained to the Daily Mail: 'I'd had a whole series of scam emails. When this one came in, I just assumed it was another. And then I thought, "hang on, I have been with them a long time, there might be something in this!"'
The travel brand certainly wasn't pulling the retired business studies teacher's leg though. In a bid to put passengers front and centre of the business, Trainline decided that Steve's name should take pride of place in a meeting room.
It's an honour he's worthy of. In his most prolific Trainline era, Steve, who travels with his wife Shirley, booked 400 rail tickets - including some more pedestrian journeys - in 2002.
He could certainly persuade anyone who's fed up with airport stress that trains are the superior transport mode, having tried-and-tested almost every kind of holiday by rail - from Japan 's 200mph Shinkansen bullet train to the London to Edinburgh sleeper and Swiss connections that marry efficiency with scenic drama.
The latter, Switzerland, has ended up being one of his favourite rail destinations - he says he's often in awe of the landscapes flicking past the window.
'The first time I travelled through the Alps, I went from Basel across Switzerland and then I found myself in Innsbruck, in Austria, and then I went all the way through to Vienna. That was a stunning journey.'
Has he had any major disasters? He's never missed a connection in Europe, he says proudly, but he did almost watch his leg almost embark on a journey without him, after his lower limb got stuck in the door en route to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
'I lifted my case on, stepped on - and the doors closed. I managed to pull my case out but my ankle was still trapped.
'I was left thinking "This is going to move off any second". People were trying to alert the guard - thankfully, eventually the doors opened.'
He concedes that sometimes things go wrong - he once got stuck on a train, without a seat, for 24 hours, in Serbia, which sounds hellish, and might have pushed less resilient travellers over the edge...but he's never strayed from the idea that a journey is just as exciting as an arrival.
How does he pass the hours? 'You have conversations, you talk about things that you've seen. You read a book, you have a snooze, something to eat...it's about relishing the journey.'
There's fun too, he says, in plotting trips; he loves working out connections and price cuts - including how fare prices can be shaved via some canny split ticketing.
And Steve says he's always surprised by how far you can get in just one day of rail travel, saying the idea that he can step off the platform in Devon in the morning and be somewhere in the balmy South of France at the day's end never gets old.
His passion for rail travel stems back to his childhood in Liverpool he says - 'I'm old enough to remember steam trains', which was then further cemented with trips across the Pennines while he was a student in Sheffield.
The avid rail passenger, who travels with his wife, Shirley says booking three months in advance to get the cheapest deals is his top tip (Pictured at his local station in Devon)
Say my name! The newly minted Steve Calladine room at Trainline's HQ in London
He remembers the night too in 2014, when the railway tracks in Dawlish, 12 miles south of Exeter, were hit by violent storms, leaving a section suspended in mid-air.
Huge waves whipped up by high winds smashed a 100ft section of the sea wall causing the collapse of the main coastal railway line linking London and Cornwall.
He says: 'I went through that in the morning by train but I had to come home on the bus - and then the following morning the rail wasn't there at all.'
Who makes the worst passengers? He's pretty tolerant of his fellow carriage-sharers but admits he's wished for ear plugs at times.
'I'm a family guy but wailing babies on trains aren't great. When you're traveling, it can sometimes be annoying, particularly when they're not yours...'
When it comes to his top tips for saving money on rail fares, he says his mantra is 'book early'.
'If I can book three months in advance, that's what I prefer to do. And I accept that sometimes, if we want to go at the nicest times of day, you do have to pay more for it.'
It still beats airport travel hands down when it comes to stress, he maintains, saying: 'I just walk down the road to my local station and the holiday starts there.'
Where's next? 'Next year, we're hoping to travel up to Scandinavia on the train.