If there&rsquos one thing about train travel that makes me uncomfortable, it&rsquos the fact that I have to spend so much time in the close proximity of complete strangers. It isn&rsquot an unpleasant thing in itself, but whenever I experience these little battle of wills with my co-passengers, I wonder if train travel is more trouble than it&rsquos worth.

One major flashpoint, often, is determining the correct time to turn out the lights post dinner. Usually by about 930pm on overnight trains, dinner is done and dusted. Now, I would like to make my bed and perhaps read for a bit, but others would want to start snoring immediately. Very seldom does one have reasonable co-passengers with whom you can strike a time-bargain. In most cases, some sleep-deprived worthy will switch off all the lights as soon as his own bed is made. Then I&rsquoll switch it back on, glaring at the malcontent. He would glare back, wait for ten minutes, and switch it off again, and say something about using the night light.

Now, the night light throws next to no illumination, so it&rsquos impossible to do anything by. But try telling that to some smug gutscratcher. And so it goes on, until both parties go to sleep feeling resentful, with the other passengers becoming collateral damage to all this. This, of course, spills over into the morning, when little ways are found to make the other person&rsquos breakfast as difficult as possible. It&rsquos tiring, and exhausting.

Then there are those, the occupants of the middle berth, who will insist on waking up the person sleeping in the lower berth as soon as it&rsquos daylight, purely because he has had enough sleep and would like to sit up and read his newspaper.

No wonder then that I do my utmost to get a side lower (or upper). To be disassociated from the nuclear family of the six berths is to reward yourself with peace. No longer do you have to worry about the right to use the charging sockets, or the use of the small moulded plastic table, or other people&rsquos dietary preferences and sleep patterns. And if you get yourself a Kindle, then it&rsquos bliss