Thackeray, William Makepeace ref1, ref2, ref3
Thatcher, Margaret ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
theatrical companies ref1
third-class travel ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Thomas, David St John ref1, ref2, ref3
Thomas, John ref1, ref2
Thomas the Tank Engine books ref1, ref2
Thoreau, Henry David ref1
Thornton, Mr ref1
Thurso ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6
ticket fraud ref1, ref2, ref3
time, synchronization of local ref1
Times, The (newspaper) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23
Tinsley, Signalman ref1
toilets ref1, ref2, ref3
trade unions ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
train operating companies (TOCs) ref1, ref2
train-spotting ref1, ref2
Transport Acts ref1, ref2, ref3
Transport Ministers ref1
Treasury ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9
Trewin, Peter ref1
troop trains ref1, ref2, ref3
Turbostars ref1
Turner, J. M. W. ref1
United States ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10
Unwin, Philip ref1, ref2, ref3
Victoria, Queen ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8
Virgin ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12
von Staab, General ref1
Voyagers ref1, ref2, ref3
Wake, Joan ref1
Wake, Sir William ref1
Wales ref1, ref2, ref3
Walker, Jim ref1
Walthamstow ref1
War Office ref1, ref2, ref3
Watkin, Sir Edward ref1
Waverley Line ref1
Weir Committee ref1
Weir, Lord ref1
Weir Report ref1, ref2
Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Welsby, John ref1, ref2, ref3
West Coast Main Line ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
West Of England Express ref1
Whitman, Walt ref1
Wick ref1
Wigan ref1, ref2
Wilhelm II, German Emperor ref1
Wilson, Harold ref1
Winsor, Tom ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
Wodehouse, P. G. ref1
Wogan, Terry ref1
Wolmar, Christian ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Wordsworth, William ref1, ref2, ref3
Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone ref1, ref2
Prologue
1 Half an hour has been knocked off the official journey time. However, Virgin Trains have retaliated by introducing a direct service from Wrexham via Crewe.
2 The old Night Ferry across the Channel (1936–1980) carried railway carriages on board ship. But that was a boat ride, not a train ride.
Chapter 1
1 Slightly faster trains go from Manchester Piccadilly.
2 The GWR’s early routes to Wales and the south-west were circuitous, and Great Way Round seems to have been the popular choice.
3 China and India are expected to overtake the British percentage in 2010.
Chapter 2
1 I have of late noticed a slightly calmer mood, following a change of management. Slightly calmer, I said.
2 This became the longest scheduled service in Britain, beating the 12 hours 38 minutes of the northbound Fort William sleeper. That’s quicker going south, presumably because it’s downhill.
3 I almost rushed over to defend the reputation of the deceased. Mrs Dunwoody, the outspoken chair of the Commons transport select committee, had kindly agreed to be interviewed for this book but died before the date we had scheduled. In a parliament of munchkins, she was indeed a staunch MP.
Chapter 3
1 Most recently by Christian Wolmar, in his generally excellent Fire & Steam (Atlantic Books, 2007).
Chapter 4
1 It was, however, the opposite invention: the railways gave people the ability to travel anywhere; the internet meant they no longer had to.
2 One exception is the train depicted on the dust-jacket of this volume. This can be attributed to either artistic licence or engineering works.
3 One station was unachievable because the government did act to protect the parks and central residential areas, where MPs and peers maintained their London homes. Such a station would also have been impossibly huge. A Parisian half-dozen would have made some sense.
4 There was a brief dispensation in the short-lived era of light railways.
5 Even so, this amiable ritual irritates Network Rail, which claims there are 28 million cases of trespass on the railways every year. How can they possibly know this?
6This apparently put him one-up on Sir Isaac Newton who had taken his profits early during the South Sea Bubble, and told a friend: ‘I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people’ – before plunging back in when the shares hit their peak.
7 The picture is now in Tate Britain, but it is dark, confused and hung well above eye level, so it is impossible to see the train. However, a curator assured me it was there.
Chapter 5
1 The figure never was definitively established, but seventy-five deaths were confirmed.
2 This is still a worry for passengers in China travelling home for New Year celebrations: the trains are so crowded that even the toilets are full, and prudent travellers buy adult nappies.
Chapter 6
1 The story started life as a novel, published in 1975, which Nobbs originally entitled The Death of Reginald Perrin, a title presumably considered too off-putting for fastidious TV audiences.
2 An updated series called Perrin, starring Martin Clunes, was due to be shown by the BBC in 2009. In the new version of the joke trains are now twenty-seven minutes late.
3 The day I went to Norbiton, the station toilets were closed due to refurbishment. South West Trains apologized for the inconvenience. Reggie would have liked that.
5This was regarded as the turn of the century, in contrast to opinion ninety-nine years later.
6The price was three shillings and sixpence (17½p), about £14 in 2008 prices. Coffee was fourpence (1½p) extra. The restaurant seems to have been open to all classes.
Chapter 7
1 There were of course exceptions, complications and charming anomalies.
2 It was independent at first, but then the Southern got saddled with it.
3 The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust reopened a mile-long stretch near Woody Bay in 2004, with ambitions of extension, and dreams of complete restoration. The words ‘Perchance it is not dead, but sleepeth’ are used as something of a motto by the revived L&BR. A wreath of bronze crysanthemums is carried by the first train at the company’s autumn gala, and laid on the captain’s grave at Martinhoe. Perchance he will be proved triumphantly right.
Chapter 8
1 I think we’re still waiting.
2 At first, he was chairman of the British Transport Commission before that ill-starred body was abolished.
3 Outlasting even the mystical far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere, painted on a wall outside Paddington in 1974.
4 In Who’s Who, he never did claim credit for his report; the only published work he listed was Electron Diffraction (1936).
Chapter 9
1 He agreed to this despite being well aware of my own views on his policy, for which he ought to get some credit in heaven.
2 Before Young, Dr Brian Mawhinney had briefly succeeded MacGregor. Mawhinney was a politician who always looked in a foul temper even when he was not dealing with transport.
3 At least, it was in theory. In keeping with the tormented recent history of this line, the first, freezing, week of 2009 produced five failures of the power lines, one closure due to a plane crash and another due to a damaged bridge.
Chapter 10
1 In three separate Harry Potter films, apparently. For muggles (and grockles), daily steam trains run between Fort William and Mallaig in summer.
2 http://www.nga.gov/ education/classroom/ art_and_ecology/ inq_lackawanna.shtm
3 Presumably both red and blue are ruled out for fear of offending one or other set of football supporters.
4 First-class was up from £237 to £259.
note on sources
1 Like this.