In reply to MG:
> Interesting. Alpinism starts seriously in the 1850s, so maybe it was all trains. Still, must have taken days and been pretty rough.
There’s a very interesting memoir a woman wrote about her childhood in mid 19th century London, in which she describes a train journey to Cornwall, where the family holidayed every summer. It really was quite a faff, took all day and sounds pretty uncomfortable; in short, like taking a bus in a remote part of India today. But perfectly do-able and much much better than horse and carriage.