From October 22 to November 15, 1998 I visited Turkey for a vacation, staying with my father who was living in Turkey at the time while he worked on the Ankara Metro project for Bombardier. Due to a recent pilot's strike the airfares were cheap so taking advantage of a seat sale offered by British Airways I bought a return ticket from Toronto to Istanbul.

My visit would coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Turkey's creation, which was October 29, as well as the 140th anniversary of the opening of the first railway in modern day Turkey from Smyrna (now Izmir) to Seydikoy, a distance of ten miles, opened by the Ottoman Railway Company (ORC) on October 30, 1858.

As with all trips overseas mine started with getting to the airport, which in this case was Toronto Pearson. I decided to take the train from Kingston which would mean that by the end of my vacation I would have travelled by train on three continents, North America, Europe, and Asia.

Back in 1998 there was no train from Toronto Union to the airport so after my VIA Rail train arrived on time I took a bus to the airport. As it had to take Toronto's Highway 427 in rush hour my arrival at the airport was delayed.

Check-in and boarding proceeded smoothly but then the flight was delayed an hour due to my seat, which turned out to be broken and required a mechanic to fix. After several failed attempts I came close to being upgraded to first class but just as I thought I was about to have a fun flight I was disappointed to hear the mechanic tell the flight attendant that the seat was 'airworthy', unless one counted the lack of music!

After landing in London at what would be 1 AM to my body I was faced with the prospect of either spending eight hours in London’s Heathrow or travelling around London, which would allow me to travel on the new Heathrow Express that had opened between London Paddington station and the airport four months earlier. While it was only fifteen minutes to get from the airport to London the price was ten pounds each way so I decided save that journey until the end and travelled into London on the London Underground.

As it was the streak of bad luck continued as the underground train I was riding, formed of 1973 stock, was declared a failure at Northfields and I had to change trains to one waiting for us on the adjacent platform.

I took the underground to London Fenchurch Street from where I caught a commuter train as far as Upminster. This train was composed of a pair of elderly Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) which were fitted with slam doors. Slam doors were operated by the passenger and during closing made a very distinctive slam, hence the name. While the use of slam doors was prevalent for many years in the UK they can now only be found on heritage railway. As it was this would be the very last time I would ride in a slam door equipped train.

From Upminster I caught the shuttle to Romford which and from there to London Liverpool Street. A quick trip on the underground took me to London Kings Cross where I caught a train as far as Finsbury Park.

I was now starting to feel tired so decided to head to London Paddington from where I caught the Heathrow Express which offers a very comfortable ride to the airport on.

Inside the airport the delays continued and the flight from London to Istanbul departed late, which meant I did not get out of Istanbul Airport until just after midnight, but at least I had made it to Turkey!