October 13th - Travelling along Morocco's fabulous trains
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm aboard a Moroccan train, from Casablanca heading north to the capital Rabat. This nation has the best network in Africa, with proper high-speed trains running between Tangier and Casablanca, plus user-friendly ticketing. For once, I am travelling in first class – upstairs in a comfy seat. Fares here are such good value that you can afford to treat yourself.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast, which, as the noises behind me might testify, is taking place on board yet another train. |
| 0:14.5 | But with good reason, because I am travelling through the fine African nation of Morocco and I am aboard one of the trains |
| 0:26.0 | born what I think is the continent's greatest rail network. |
| 0:32.0 | This is the navet, the shuttle service that runs between Casablanca, the main commercial city in Morocco and Rabat, |
| 0:42.0 | the capital. It takes about 70 minutes and my goodness, it's a fine journey running beside the |
| 0:49.5 | vast port of Casablanca and then through marshalling yards and back streets beneath a kind and sunny |
| 1:00.4 | African sky. Rail travel in places outside Europe is sometimes a bit daunting for people. Certainly, if you are not in |
| 1:14.1 | somewhere like Japan, then you could well find standards or not what you would be expecting. But I just |
| 1:20.5 | want to provide, I guess, hope, a bit of reassurance and inspiration about travelling by rail in Morocco. It's very straightforward. |
| 1:30.3 | I travelled yesterday from Marrakesh on the Express to Casablanca and that was straightforward |
| 1:38.3 | to book on the website of Moroccan Railways. Oncf, They've got a good English site. They will take British |
| 1:47.8 | credit cards and you just book your train and turn up having got the ticket on your mobile phone. |
| 1:55.9 | So pretty equivalent, I guess, to what's happening in the UK. For this particular train I didn't book in advance I turned up at the station. |
| 2:05.6 | Slight impediment to easy travel is that you have to queue up and pay cash. |
| 2:13.6 | They do have machines which accept credit cards, but only Moroccan credit cards. |
| 2:19.0 | And so therefore make sure you've got a few Moroccan dirums for your journey. |
| 2:25.5 | One reason I can talk so loudly without fear of disturbing other people is because I'm in first class. |
| 2:37.6 | It costs about 50% more. It gets you more space and certainly on the three-hour journey from Marrakesh to Casablanca, it was worth it for the extra |
| 2:47.5 | comfort that you get in some quite kind of traditional trains. |
| 2:52.4 | And if you were lucky enough to travel on trains in France, say towards the end of the 20th century, |
| 3:01.5 | then this will feel reassuringly familiar. |
| 3:05.1 | This is a double-decker kind of commuter-style train, but with big comfortable |
... |
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