PhD? who, me?!

review of Bichsel's Kindergeschichten:

"Semisweet shaggy dog stories about dear little men who are, in one peculiar way or another, obsessed. One man ... is infatuated with trains and knows so much about them -- engine numbers, timetables, routes -- that he feels no need whatever to ride one. (If a person uses his head, you see, he doesn't have to board a train to find out where it will go.)"

You see I'd rather board the trains. The question is, which trains.