'How can you not attend the funeral of one's father?'

Leaving Poland: The lucky ones gripped their tickets a little more tightly and hurried past the growing scrum.

Dozens of restless bodies obscured the international ticket office at Warsaw's main train station and scores of impatient eyes strafed the dim cubicle for signs of life.

The website of Polish state railways had collapsed within minutes of announcing plans to provide special trains to Rome for Pope John Paul's funeral, and the result was this: a mass of impatient Poles clutching precious zlotys in their pockets, demanding the chance to exchange them for an even more precious passage to the Eternal City.

Across Warsaw and Poland, a deeply Catholic country of 40 million people, mourners looked for ways to get to the Italian capital to bid farewell to their national hero and purveyors of all conceivable means of transport looked for ways to oblige.

In the bowels of the Warsaw station, dozens of people quietly gathered on platform four, apparently a little embarrassed at not being part of the ensuing throng upstairs.

They shuffled along the platform with their bags, some travelling light, others lugging bulging supplies of solid Polish food and drink, eyeing the notice board all the while, willing it to clatter round and declare their train ready to depart.

At a little after 9.30pm, it finally dissolved into a sea of swimming letters that gradually coalesced into the desired form. The train called Chopin - the composer who is now perhaps Poland's second-favourite son - would leave at 21.37 for Vienna.

"Thank God, we are on our way," muttered one elderly traveller to her companions, who helped her onto the train and waved her off with the entreaty: "Pray for us!"

She was on the first leg of a journey that millions of her countrymen were desperate to make and which a few dozen were now starting on the night-train to the Austrian capital, a city that for centuries has been one of Europe's great crossroads.

"From Vienna we are not sure what to do," admitted Tomas Sokolowski, who was travelling with his wife, Elzbeta, "but we wanted to get moving south no matter what, so we just decided to go."

The couple were lucky, they said, because as retired teachers they had a little money put aside and could leave home quickly after packing up their two small bags.

"Who knows how many people will make it to Rome, have the chance to actually see our Pope or be there at his funeral?" added Tomas. "We had to go early to give ourselves a chance."

Despite not having accommodation booked in Rome or a detailed plan of how to get there, the 62-year-olds showed little apprehension of the journey ahead.

"Millions of pilgrims are on their way to the same place," said Elzbeta. "We will all look after each other."

As the high rises and smokestacks of Warsaw suburbs passed by in the gloom, yesterday's travellers on Chopin, the daily overnight train to Vienna, could not predict what lay ahead but knew they were leaving travel chaos behind.

In the central station from which they had just departed, news agencies reported that many would-be pilgrims had bedded down on the floor to be sure of getting tickets on one of only six special trains that were announced to run between Polish cities and Rome.

National airline LOT said it had sold every seat to Rome until Friday and was laying on "our biggest Boeings" and an extra flight to the city yesterday.

"And how can you not attend the funeral of one's father?" one pensioner, Malgorzata Jurowska (65,) was quoted as saying in LOT's Warsaw ticket office.

"I am giving my savings for a holy thing," she said, after paying for the flight to Rome.

For thousands of others, the prospect of a 30-hour journey by road, spending two nights on a bus, paying at least €150 for a ticket and staying as much as 200 miles outside Rome appeared to be no obstacle.

"I was a small boy when he was elected the Pope," wrote Piotr in an advert posted on Poland's Onet.pl website to find a seat in a private car to Rome. "He paid us so many visits and now it's time for me to go on a trip and say goodbye to him."

City officials in the Pope's home town of Wadowice in southern Poland have chartered four buses to take some 200 locals to Italy.

Many will be given free lodging in private homes in Carpineto Romano, a town near Rome that is a sister city to Wadowice, though potential pilgrims from the nearby city of Krakow were still waiting for a response to their travel requests.

"We already have 400 pilgrims who want to fly," said Mariola Peknicka from the Krakow diocese, where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop from 1964 until he became Pope in 1978.

"We have to wait to see how many charter flights we can get. With every minute there are more and more people coming and asking how we can help them to get to Rome."

On board the Warsaw-Vienna express, as it wound down through the Czech Republic towards Austria, some slept while others talked of what their pilgrimage would bring and why they were so intent on making it.

"This is expensive for us, but Friday will be a national occasion for Poland, there in the Vatican," said Ana, a student from the southern industrial city of Katowice.

"It is only right to be there, it is the last chance to see our Pope," added her companion, Dorota. "We will try and take a bus or train from Vienna to Italy. I've heard there is another overnight train straight to Rome."

In Marek's compartment, Polish sausage and two empty bottles of the popular Zywiec beer were clustered on the little folding table.

In the corridor outside, wreathed in smoke from the first cigarette of the day, he watched dawn cast a pink glow over the steel and glass skyscrapers that marked our approach to Vienna.

"He was the only man like that," the 28-year old engineer said of John Paul, "and there is just once chance to say goodbye to him. I hope to make it, but if I didn't even try, I would always be sorry."