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Michael Williams Michael Williams /uploads/biblio/64454.jpg

Michael Williams is a national newspaper and magazine journalist. When he's not travelling around the country on slow trains, he commutes at speed on the 440-mile round rail trip between his home in L...

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On the slow trains of Victorian times

10 May 2012

  The slow trains of Victorian times could be a treat to savour, according to the world's greatest student of timetables. See my article in this week's Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139234/A-class-return-days-Britain-WAS-great-How-Victorian-railway-guide-backstreet-Salford-prin...

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Webcasts

My interview on BBC Radio 4 Today

30 May 2011

The joy of the dining car and slow trains

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  • WHAT THE MEDIA SAY

    Here are some recent comments from the media about On the Slow Train and On the Slow Train Again: "A delicious read" – London Evening Standard; "A magical world barely changed since the golden age of rail" – The Daily Mail; "On track to a trip back in time" - The Daily Telegraph; "Captivating" – The Sunday Express; "Deep in our soul, the railways represent an idyll that we love" - The Independent; "A celebration of the delights of rail travel in the 21st century" – Hampstead and Highgate Express; "Even in the age of the Pendolino and Eurostar, the slow train lives on. The book provides evidence of a Britain that is as forgotten as the lines on which Michael Williams travels...This is its strength" – Christian Wolmar, The Oldie; "A eulogy to a lost world" -– Camden New Journal and Islington Tribune; "Superb narrative, interspersed with dry humour, acute observations and some excellent anecdotes that make you feel feel you know the lines so well that you want to travel on them...there are some wonderful bitter-sweet moments emerging from the pages, as the reader is taken on a fascinating series of journeys." – The Railway Magazine; "Michael Williams takes us along memory lane but his description of each route encapsuates a taste of 21st century Britain gleaned from the people he talks to along the way" – Heritage Railway; "The author takes the reader on 12 historic railway routes that still offer much of the same charm as when rail was the way to travel. There may not be a steam loco on the front, but there's no doubting the author's enthusiasm for railways and rail travel" – Steam Railway; "Idyllic" – Lancashire Evening Post; 'Highly readable" – Newsletter, London Transport Museum

  • Slow Train to Heaven

    My account in the Daily Mail of my 30,000 miles of rail travel around Britain, with my top Ten British Train Journeys

  • 'Bittern by North Norfolk's charms'

    My journey along the lovely Bittern Line in Norfolk, from On the Slow Train Again

  • On track to a trip back in time

    My celebration in the Daily Telegraph of a year of travel on the slow trains and branch lines of Britain

  • Why the British are a nation of train lovers

    The railways are a national treasure: Michael Williams writes on slow trains in the Comment pages of The Independent

  • Slow Train to a Lost Britain

    The enduring nostalgia of slow trains: Michael Williams's article from the Daily Mail

  • Flanders and Swann perform Slow Train and other greatest hits

    Original sound recordings with some nostalgic pictures added

  • Association of Community Rail Partnerships

    Lots of useful information about the slow trains and branch lines of Britain

 

About me

Michael Williams writes for many publications, including the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, the Independent on Sunday, the New Statesman, The Oldie and the railway specialist pre...

Read my full biography