Last Call for the Dining Car: The Daily Telegraph Book of Great Railway Journeys Book

Ever since Paul Theroux first embarked in London on the first train of his Great Railway Bazaar, railways have been a rich source for the best travel writing. These days, with our awareness of the global warming implications of endless air travel and the opportunity to jump on a train at magnificent St Pancras and be whisked straight to the continent, train travel has assumed a new importance and romance - which is why so many more tour companies are offering a great train ride as part of their holiday itineraries. Now, Michael Kerr, the Telegraph's deputy Travel Editor, has burrowed deep in the newspaper's archives and collected together the very best of its writing about railway journeys. Here are journeys non-stop from London to Vladivostok; across the Canadian Rockies; the first train across Australia from Darwin to Alice Springs; on the teeming, crawling, travelling adventure of Indian railways. But there is also the Duke of Windsor haughtily washing his hands of train travel for ever after being held up by a signal failure on the Southern region; the very last day of steam travel on British Rail in 1967, and John Betjeman's paean to the glory of old-time train travel.This is an anthology that will appeal to the railway buff and the armchair traveller alike; to everyone who has ever Inter-railed in their youth, and everyone nostalgic for the days when the only way to cross a continent was by train. Michael Kerr is Deputy Travel Editor of the Daily Telegraph. He lives in Surrey.