In 1841 the preacher Thomas Cook invented mass tourism and “package tours”. The original package was an excursion by train from Leicester to the small country town of Loughborough. It included on-board music, band at arrival, a sandwich, a cup of tea and the return train ride (third class, no seats, it probably felt as crowded as a middle seat in row 28) – and probably some lecture on abstinence. What Thomas Cook had organized was a teetotaller tour: luring workers away from alcohol.

Railways had just started less than two decades earlier and were initially not meant for such organized vacation tours for the low-income/low-spending travellers. Thomas Cook changed that and became a global brand name. A century and a quarter later, airlines followed the model – just not for the teetotallers, but for the sun and fun seekers.

Thomas Cook’s original idea was not even to earn money (the first trip cost a shilling), but to do something beneficial for society and the souls and health of his flock. Today the end meets the beginning: there was no profit. Not sure how much there was for health and souls….

As is so often the case when a large company tanks, politicians rush to the rescue. Ballots count more than economic sense. It seems rather contradictory in the current atmosphere of saving the climate that the (German) government supports an ailing airline and intercontinental tour operator, while finding money for the development of rail infrastructure and for improvements to railway operations always seems a challenge.

Clearly, making railways run economically is a big challenge, but if there is money to be spent, should it then not be for the common good? Just like Thomas Cook – a business man – had intended it to be.