The Nordland line crosses 293 bridges and runs through 154 tunnels, most of which I missed as I slept, waking at 4.30 am to the sight of the Ranfjorden, its green waters bubbling with minerals and foam. Throwing off my blanket, I sat up and peered between its forested banks to where fingers of snow still crept down the mountains. Passengers were stirring, checking the time before turning over and going back to sleep. Determined to stay awake I fetched coffee and pulled out my book. Since Sweden, I’d become fascinated by Scandi literature and was almost at the end of The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas, a slim but spellbinding novel set around the fjords as winter turns to spring. It was a deeply visceral and beautiful book about two young girls which explored, rather aptly, electric connections, friendship and grief.

“All good?” Marc was awake, and I nodded. The pain had lessened and I was now feeling lighter as the spirit of the new day took hold. He joined me to take up residence in the dining car, passing the family carriage on our way. It had a designated play area with building blocks, wooden xylophones and cubby holes in which to hide. A passenger was asleep there, stretched out across the seating beneath a mural of a little girl with a dragonfly perched on her shoulder.

Around us lay the Helgeland region, a salty, muddy scent entering through an open window. From on high it appeared like a jigsaw of river rapids, woods and slender beaches. The train was ascending and I looked down to where water tumbled over boulders, and patches of forest appeared on islets in lakes. Peaks rose in the distance, red cabins were tucked into the crevices and the morning light deepened, enriching the wilderness with warmth and colour. A bearded passenger in his thirties entered and sat down across from us.

“Isn’t that the dude from the kids’ carriage?” Marc whispered, as the man retied his ponytail and pulled both knees up against his chest. Determined to enquire about his odd sleeping arrangements, I struck up a conversation with Ludwig. Originally from Stockholm, he was a chief mate for the coastguard and had been living in Tromsø for the past ten years. Like Erik he was getting off at Fauske where he would take a six-hour bus to Narvik, followed by a four-hour ride up to Tromsø. For the last fifteen years Ludwig had given up flying unless it was mandatory. I asked him why and he gave a frustrated snort as though talking to a moron.

“When you see what’s happening to the world – and I’ve seen it for a while now – I try to do my part and show people that you can do it if you want to. It’s also really fun,’ he said, breaking into a comical laugh that sounded like he was panting. ‘One time I met this guy and he was an alcoholic, he really liked his drink and we shared a cabin. He didn’t want to drink alone so he passed me beer and he had moonshine with him as well. He was a hunter-gatherer and he had a lot of reindeer as well… hearts.”

“Hearts?”

“Yah, he had a lot of meat, when you cure and ferment it?” Ludwig cupped his hands together. “He gave me two reindeer hearts. It’s really expensive food. But he just gave it to me because we had a lovely time together.”

“No one really gives you hearts on planes,” said Marc, from the next table. “Just aggro.”

Ludwig started laughing again. His eyebrows turned up at the ends, giving him an intense look of concentration, but he found everything funny and had a lovely aura about him. For the most part Ludwig’s adventures had centred on finding drinking buddies on board and carrying luggage for old ladies who gave him wine. “I met some hooligans as well, they gave me beer.”

As a commuter, Ludwig had taken this route at least twenty times. In his opinion, spring was one of the best times of year to travel for the scenery, revealing a wintry landscape on the brink of thaw; but autumn was also ideal for passengers wanting to see the Northern Lights, which he had witnessed once from the train.

“We have three months of summer now in Tromsø and you can have adventures around the clock: people are hiking, sailing, and you can still ski if you climb up to the glaciers,” he said. “And then we have three months of total darkness.”

“I love winter,” said Marc. “It’s such a great time to be creative. It gives you the time to do things.”

“I hate it,” I said. “It’s so depressing doing the school run in the dark, not being able to take the kids to the park ’cos it’s bloody raining all the time.”

“It’s such a British thing, to moan about the cold every year when it comes round. We live in Britain, we know it’s wet and cold. Why we moaning about it like it’s something new?”

Excerpted with permission from Moonlight Express: Around the World By Night Train, Monisha Rajesh, Bloomsbury India.