Author Description

Travelling all over Britain, comedian, bookseller and novelist Ian Marchant takes a microscope to the strange and glorious history of the British railway. He meets those who still hold the railways close to their hearts - the model railway enthusiasts, the train-spotters and bashers (a hybrid of train-spotting where the individual - usually male - has to travel behind a certain locomotive in order to catalogue it), the commuters and the steam enthusiasts. He swaps stories with commuters at the far reaches of London suburbia, goes to deserted railway museums, and smokes cigarettes on remote, windswept stations in the furthest corners of Scotland. Turning his characteristic eye for character, humour and surprise he reveals how his own life - visiting his divorced parents, meeting his first love, going to college - has been intertwined with the railway and how travelling by train is one of the great shared experiences of the British nation.