Click & Collect
from 2 Hours*
Last Christmas
delivery dates
Free UK Standard Delivery On all orders over £25 Order in time for Christmas 18th December by 1pm 2nd Class |
20th December by 1pm 1st Class
Free Click & Collect From 2 hours after you order*
Belles and Whistles: Journeys Through Time on Britain's Trains (Paperback)
  • Belles and Whistles: Journeys Through Time on Britain's Trains (Paperback)
zoom

Belles and Whistles: Journeys Through Time on Britain's Trains (Paperback)

(author)
1 Review Sign in to write a review
£10.99
Paperback 288 Pages
Published: 02/07/2015
  • 5+ in stock

Usually dispatched within 2-3 working days

  • This item has been added to your basket
In the heroic days of rail travel, you could dine on kippers and champagne aboard the Brighton Belle; smoke a post-prandial cigar as the Golden Arrow closed in on Paris, or be shaved by the Flying Scotsman's on-board barber. Everyone from schoolboys to socialites knew of these glamorous 'named trains' and aspired to ride aboard them.

In Belles and Whistles, Andrew Martin recreates these famous train journeys by travelling aboard their nearest modern day equivalents. Sometimes their names have survived, even if only as a footnote on a timetable leaflet, but what has usually - if not always - disappeared is the extravagance and luxury. As Martin explains how we got from there to here, evocations of the Golden Age contrast with the starker modern reality: from monogrammed cutlery to stirring sticks, from silence on trains to tannoy announcements, from compartments to airline seating. For those who wonder whatever happened to porters, dining cars, mellow lighting, timetables, luggage in advance, trunk murders, the answers are all here.

Martin's five journeys add up to an idiosyncratic history of Britain's railways, combining humour, historical anecdote and reportage from the present and romantic evocations of the past.

Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781781252130
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 205 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 22 mm
Edition: Main


MEDIA REVIEWS
Whether describing his trips to Paris or Penzance, Martin is entertaining company, alive to the history of his route ... leaves you with renewed confidence that trains can still be the most civilised way to travel. A bittersweet journey of contrasts between romance and reality. Martin's wry, witty commentary punches more than just tickets. His wonderfully well-informed, anecdotal prose punches more than just tickets

You may also be interested in...

The Train Book
Added to basket
DK
£25.00
Hardback
John Betjeman on Trains
Added to basket
Red for Danger
Added to basket
£15.99
Paperback
The Tube
Added to basket
£8.99
Hardback
The Flying Scotsman
Added to basket
£7.99
Paperback
Underground, Overground
Added to basket
Railway Posters
Added to basket
£8.99
Paperback
The Train Driver's Manual
Added to basket
Yorkshire Dialect
Added to basket
The Great Western Railway
Added to basket
Railway Architecture
Added to basket
Man in Seat 61
Added to basket
£18.99
Paperback
Eleven Minutes Late
Added to basket
British Rail
Added to basket
£17.99
Paperback

“A book to bring you joy”

I am not a train spotter, nor do I know very much about trains (other than that I like travelling by train) but this book brought me so much joy that I've since bought two other copies as gifts. It's packed... More

Paperback edition
Helpful? Upvote 5

Please sign in to write a review

Your review has been submitted successfully.

env: aptum
branch: