There's a magical romance about trains that no other form of transport can capture. Meeting under an iconic station clock at a grand terminus. Gathering speed through city, town and country, swooping across viaducts, rattling across huge junctions and whistling through tunnels. At long last you are in a small Sussex beachside halt, or a Welsh valley country station, beside a quiet Norfolk waterway, or winding through a remote forest high above a Scottish loch. Dreamily you think, 'Do those same twin ribbons of steel really lead all the way back to the greatest city in Europe? Can this really be the very same seat?' Britain by Rail travels to a world far from the endless queues and prodding security of ugly airport terminals. It abandons the cars to their motorway jams and soaring petrol prices, and revels instead in the gems of Britain's historic railway system.
