Egg‘s Traveling Companions is a testimony of the ease and comfort of train travel. The two elegantly dressed women, virtually mirroring images of each other, sit without even looking out of the window at the long view of the shoreline beyond. One reads the other dozes; one has a picnic basket beside her, and the other a flowery hat. The window is closed to keep out the wind, smoke, and cinders.
For a more descriptive picnic on a train, see D.H. Lawrence’s Aaron’s Rod.
See Augustus Leopold Egg. Traveling Companions (1862), oil on canvas. City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England