Most of us have had experience of State-owned transport. Once,
on the Trans-Caspian Railway, I was the only passenger in the only " soft " coach who was not a Soviet railway official going to a " self- criticism conference " in Tashkent. After two days we were about 12 hours behind schedule, there was no food, no electric light and the condition of the lavatory defied description, even by a Russian. My fellow passengers seemed pained when I criticised their state of affairs. " The Trans-Caspian is an old railway," they said. " You must not expect too much of it." A few days later, at Samarkand, I boarded a train on the Turksib Railway, with the prospect of a four- day journey before we connected with the Trans-Siberian. Con- ditions were, though not quite, almost as bad. " But," said the passengers, " the Turksib is a new railway. You must not expect too much of it."
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