I love trains, really. Some of my gentle childish memories are connected with long-distance train journeys to the south of Russia to my grandma. The journey on the train takes 36 hours and we have trains that are specially equipped to travel long distances, because our country is huge enough and sometimes air tickets are rather expensive to buy, so people choose trains to get from one city to another.
Finland is long from its north till south, so I thought, by analogy with my home country, that here apart from planes people also use long-distance trains, but I was really surprised when I knew that in Finland there are only express trains that can get you to any part of the country.
During my previous visits to Finland, I have seen some Finnish trains, and I was amazed because they are double deckers! In my country such trains have appeared just recently and I have never travelled by them. I was looking at Finnish trains and thought how may people feel to go by them and where they go and I had no idea back then that I will try this experience some day.
I live in St. Petersburg and it's about 500km to get home from Turku and, fortunately, I have an ability to travel home not only by car, but by train also, so I usually travel home by express train Allegro that runs from Helsinki to St.Petersburg every day 4 times a day and it takes 3,5 hours from the Finnish capital to my home city, what is very fast! Moreover, I can pass all the customs things there, just during a journey, not wasting time.
It's very convenient to have such a train connection between 2 countries, but sometimes the price can be high, so one time I wanted to travel home I suggested my parents picking me up at Lappeenranta (city which is close to Russian border), where I would get by local InterCity train, what meant I would try that train I have seen once! I was so excited!
When I got inside, I found out that inside is like my favourite Allegro - comfortable seats, Wi-Fi-connection and electric sockets near every seat. I even didn't notice the time I spent in journey - it was so nice, but what I did notice that train was late! 15 minutes late! It was so strange, because in my country trains are never late - even intercity trains, not mentioning long-distance trains, and here every time I came from St.Petersburg to Helsinki, the Allegro nearly always was late 10-15 minutes, and, on the contrary, when I travelled from Helsinki to St.Petersburg, the train always came on time.
This thing surprised me a lot, because I find Finnish nation as a very precise and responsible, so this situation really breaks my image. Anyway, the more I know.