2017/24 Michael Williams: On The Slow Train (2012) ***

It may be that four stars is a little niggardly. This is a very enjoyable, and enjoyably slender, book, written whilst Williams was lecturing in the department of journalism at The University of Central Lancashire in Preston, where Cath taught in the Business School for 11 years. Williams is a journalist who held senior positions with the Independent and The Sunday Times but managed to fit in regular journalism about railways, a lifelong love. This joy and extensive knowledge underpins the commentary on all of the journeys related here. I was reminded of Christian Wolmar, another railway journalist, without his polemicism.

The journeys described range from the former tube trains on the Isle of Wight to the St Erth and St Ives line in Cornwall. He travels on the 8:04 from Norwich along the Suffolk coast and on the Cumbrian coast line via Grange-over-Sands and Sellafield. Most memorable perhaps were the steam excursion to Canterbury and the West Highland line via Rannoch Moor. I was certainly left eager to take the journeys myself.

I spoke to my father last night about our intended move to Berwick-upon-Tweed and when I explained that being in walking distance of a railway station is a priority for us, it was clear that there was no meeting of minds. He is a creature of the motor age for whom cars have always been an interest and a status symbol. has never been a rail traveller and our local line from Selby to Bridlington was a victim of the Beeching cuts. I can quite see that for farmers' sons the motor car opened up the world and gave speed and relative luxury but my reaction was a little different. I too found being in the middle of nowhere isolating but having to use the car for each and every external need seemed unsatisfactory, wasteful and inefficient. Perhaps I just like walking more than some and to walk or cycle to a railway station opens up a world of possibilities. The huge growth in rail travel over the last 20 years suggests that we have rediscovered our railways and Michael Williams is all for that.