Artist Captures Everything That's Great and Awful About Train Travel

Even though he's Canadian, the place where he carried out his project was India. The Asian country has a vast network of railroads, and trains are still the most important means of transportation over long distances there. But out of all the possible routes to take, the Dibrugarh-Kanyakumari Vivek Express is the most spectacular. Not only that, but it's also the longest, both regarding distance (4,273 kilometers or 2,655 miles) and the time taken to complete it (about 85 hours).

Ed Hanley didn't think twice and hopped on the four-day-long journey, taking his camera with him as well. The result is an x-ray of train travel in India, but one that also highlights the things we all like or loathe about this ancient form of transportation. Calling it "ancient" instantly brings us to one aspect that makes train journeys special: it evokes some sort of nostalgia, reminding us of the times when people went across the world, from Paris to Vladivostok, in elegant train cars together with the rest of that time's aristocracy.

There'll be none of that in India, though. There, your travel companions will be asking for "baksheesh" (a euphemism for begging), while others will sell you anything, "from a hard-boiled egg to a cellphone battery," Hanley tells Mashable. But this is what taking the train is all about: meeting new people. You're trapped in there for God-only-knows how many hours, so you might as well try to make them fly by quicker.

For a photographer, that's pure gold. It's always easier to convince friends than strangers to pose in front of your camera, and that basically means taking care of the hardest part of the job. Browse through Ed's photographs and you can see for yourself.

Now, meeting people can be a desirable aspect of taking the train or not, depending on the type of individual you are, but one thing is certain: taking 85 hours to complete what would have otherwise been a six-hour flight requires a very strong commitment. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Ed Hanley couldn't have come up with these images and the gorgeous video had he chosen to fly. Just enjoy.