Belles and Whistles
eBook - ePub

Belles and Whistles

Journeys Through Time on Britain's Trains

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Belles and Whistles

Journeys Through Time on Britain's Trains

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Belles and Whistles by Andrew Martin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & World History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Copyright Page
  2. Contents
  3. Introduction
  4. Chapter One: The Golden Arrow
  5. Chapter Two: The Brighton Belle
  6. Chapter Three: The Cornish Riviera Express
  7. Chapter Four: The Flying Scotsman
  8. Chapter Five: The Caledonian Sleeper
  9. Acknowledgements