The descriptions can be wordy and technical at times, but if you’re a regular user of trains for commuting or general travel throughout the UK, the book is a must-read. Some of the best parts of his book come in the sidelights, as when he describes the special trains laid on for hop pickers (along with the unfortunate consequences), or when he explains the use of slip coaches – carriages detached from a rake at speed and allowed to drift into a station under their own momentum, letting the rest of the train proceed without stopping. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Pivotal moments including the Amalgamation of 1923 when most railway companies became part of the GWR, LMSR or LNER, nationalisation and privatisation are set in their historical context. I would have appreciated more statistics and graphs (there are no graphs at all in the book) and in general a more skeptical outlook. Your details will only be used by the Museum and suppliers working on our behalf and you can unsubscribe at any time.If you want to know why the railways are the way they are, Wolmar’s release has everything you’re looking for.

There is a fantastic introductory history to Britain’s nationalized railway here, one that is inclusive of managerial and technological detail, in particular as Wolmar regularly explains complex technical terminology for non-railway oriented readers, such as the railway “bogie” (160) and the “pantograph” (170), terms familiar to railway savvy readers but not necessarily to everyone else. However, we are now able to offer limited "DDP" (Delivered Duty Paid) services to certain EU destinations. I certainly have vague memories of British Rail and of course the iconic double arrow logo still lives on today. His successor, Robert Reid, had a direct line to the secretary of state for transport, with whom he went shooting, and was on first-name terms with Denis Thatcher. Such an insightful look at the history of the state owned company from its nationalisation of the big four train operators in 1948 to privatisation in the early 1990's.Charts the progress of British Rail up to privatisation with the changes bought about by the move from steam and the battles with the governments. Whichever one, his videos of passing locomotives (or more often of himself, with the odd snort of a diesel engine in the background) have garnered tens of millions of views. I started to become aware of news events and politics around John Major's Tory government as the various franchises took over the running of the railway, so it was interesting to read the whole history that led to that decision.

His book, however, is hardly an advertisement for nationalisation, even if one accepts the need for state subsidy to keep the trains running.

For two decades after the war, BR persisted with expensive, polluting and labour-intensive steam locomotives, not wishing to go to war with the trade unions in either the rail or coal sectors. That question might be answered next year, when Great British Railways, a new body set up to superintend the rail network, is launched.

Nevertheless, they are now significantly busier than they were in his time – between 1983 and the start of the pandemic, passenger numbers increased by two and a half times. Although this did not eliminate all of the problems, managers grew wise to the shift to Thatcher economics rather than resisting it. While this focus means the book occasionally lacks colour (Wolmar's brief discourse on signalmen's tea brewing habits was a welcome interlude! Uniting disparate lines into a highly competent organisation – heralding ‘The Age of the Train’ – and, for a time, providing one of the fastest regular rail services in the world.

For instance, the engineering drawings for a sophisticated artificial leg, which are going to be manufactured at the Crewe locomotive works for issue to injured employees, are featured on the first spread, and on the following page, the architectural sketches for a church in Crewe, which was paid for by LNWR to serve the local community of railway workers, are featured.