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-printer-book-worlds-surprising-hit.html
02 May 2012
Heading off to take the slow train through Spain - looking forward especially to the winding, scenic line from Cordoba to Algeciras at the southern tip of the country.
04 April 2012
Leafing through a new book called 'Great Victorian Railway Journeys' in the British Library bookshop (where I am busy writing my forthcoming book 'How Britain's Railways Won the War') I noticed that the author had described my book 'On the Slow Train' as one of her inspirations. Nice to know!
24 March 2012
Britain's most advanced trains (so far), the Virgin Pendolino are going into service with two extra carriages from next month. You either love them (fast) or hate them (cramped). But they are the best we have got until HS2, and they take you fast to fabulous slow trains such as the fabulously scenic Windermere branch or the Lancaster to Morecambe route across the Pennines – Britain's most delightful secret railway.
08 March 2012
Who would have thought that On the Slow Train Again would find itself on the fashion pages of the national press. But there it is, along with Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton on Page 3 of today's Indy! http://ind.pn/y0SMl1
04 March 2012
I've been commissioned by the Indpependent newspaper to travel around in Spain and write an article on the slow trains there. (By contrast, the high speed network there is the longest in Europe and the second longest in the world after China!)
27 February 2012
I've just been reading this marvellous old railway guide from 1866 for an article I've been commissioned to write for the 'Daily Mail'. It's recently been published in an inexpensive facsimile What a marvellous insight into a past era - and a perfect companion for anyone who has enjoyed my books...
06 February 2012
The new updated edition of my latest book On the Slow Train Again is out this week (February 9) in an updated and revised paperback edition from Arrow Books. Have seen the advance copies and they look great!
10 January 2012
Slow trains can be better than High Speed Rail, says author of new book
Modern travel has become a speed trap for all of us. We expect to travel faster and faster and have become obsessed with speed, says the author of a new book to be published on 9 February. The government has just announced it is to spend billions, ripping up some of the most beautiful countryside in England to build a high-speed railway line to Birmingham just to shave a few minutes off an already fast journey, while commuters sweat sardine-like in packed trains for lack of investment.
High-speed railway lines are being rushed through all over the world, often at the expense of conventional travellers even within countries where most people will never have the chance to use them. In China there are trains that run at 250 miles an hour through a nation where the ox-cart is the standard mode of travel for many people.
Best-selling railway writer Michael Williams was commissioned by publisher Random House to spend two years travelling more than 30,000 miles on mainline railways and secondary routes and byways around Britain. The new revised and updated paperback edition of On the Slow Train Again: Twelve Great British Train Journeys is published by Arrow Books on 9 February.
True, some of the journeys take a little longer. But how much less stressful. The Eurostar route to the Channel Tunnel might be a modern marvel, but the train passes in a blur through concrete culverts and tunnels. When it opens in 2026 the new HS2 line is likely to be equally unattractive, traversing long tunnels and dark subterranean cuttings beneath picturesque countryside as it heads north. By contrast, Williams delighted in the existing Chiltern Railways route to Birmingham from London’s Marylebone station, which rejoices in Britain’s most comfortable trains and some of her most mellow scenery through gently rolling hills. All with a journey time of just 90 minutes – not significantly more than that on the new route on which the government is spending 17bn, particularly when taking into account connecting times at either end.
Likewise, instead of being shot like a bullet from London to Paris in a couple of hours, how much more civilised to travel through the Garden of England on the conventional, parallel line where, Williams found, a journey across the Downs offers passengers timeless views of old England.
And more people are choosing to travel in the traditional fashion. Britain’s growing appetite for travel on secondary lines is confirmed by new figures from the Association of Train Operating Companies, which show increases of up to 55 per cent increase in passenger numbers in 12 months alone, demonstrating that people are flocking back to classic railways and may not necessarily rate high speed over comfort and convenience. Michael Williams travels over several of the top ten burgeoning lines in his new book, including Blackpool to Preston and St Erth to St Ives.
Williams said: “The special joy of slower train travel is that it can transform a journey into a pleasure rather than merely a stressful episode between departure and arrival. A slow train journey can re-engineer time in the most therapeutic of ways. In fact nobody put it better than the essayist A. P. Herbert who said: ‘Slow travel by train is almost the only restful experience that is left to us.’”
Michael Williams writes widely on railways for many publications. He is a senior Fleet Street journalist and academic, having held many senior positions, including Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday and Head of News at The Sunday Times. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Central Lancashire. Contact: michaelwennwilliams@gmail.com or 07590 075318
On the Slow Train Again by Michael Williams
Arrow Books, £8.99 Publication date, 9 February 2012
EAN: 9780099552857 Format: Paperback
Other Editions: Hardback , ebook
Synopsis
Michael Williams covered tens of thousands of miles travelling along the fascinating rail byways of Britain for this new collection of journeys, a companion to his earlier book On the Slow Train (Arrow Books, £7.99) Here is the 'train to the end of the world' running for more than four splendid hours through lake, loch and moorland from Inverness to Wick, the most northerly town in Britain. He discovers a perfect country branch line in London’s commuterland, and travels on one of the slowest services in the land along the shores of the lovely Dovey estuary to the far west of Wales. He takes the stopping train across the Pennines on a line with so few services that its glorious scenery is a secret known only to the regulars. Here, too, is the Bittern Line in Norfolk and the Tarka Line in North Devon as well as the little branch line to the fishing port of Looe in Cornwall, rescued from closure in the 1960s and now celebrating its 150th anniversary taking families on holiday to the seaside. From the most luxurious and historic – aboard the Orient Express – to the most futuristic – on the driverless trains of London’s Docklands Light Railway – here is a unique travel companion celebrating the joy of slow travel and the treasures of our railway heritage from one of Britain’s most knowledgeable railway writers. Revised and updated for the paperback.
On The Slow Train: Twelve Great British Railway Journeys by Michael Williams
Arrow Books, £7.99
EAN: 9781848092082 Format: Paperback Published: 7 Apr 2011
Other Editions: Hardback , ebook
Synopsis
This beautifully-packaged book will take the reader on the slow train to another era when travel meant more than hurrying from one place to the next, the journey meaning nothing but time lost in crowded carriages, condemned by broken timetables. Sharing the author’s travels on slow trains through remotest East Anglia, Cumbria and Wales as well as the Garden of England and the Chiltern Hills will reconnect with that long-missed need to lift our heads from the daily grind and reflect that there are still places in Britain where we can stop and stare. It will tap into many things: a love of railways, a love of history, a love of nostalgia. This book will be a paean to another age before milk churns, porters and cats on seats were replaced by security announcements and Burger King. These 12 spectacular journeys will help free us from what Baudelaire denounced as 'the horrible burden of time.' Updated for the paperback.
What the critics say about the Slow Train books
A delicious read – Evening Standard
Just the ticket – Lancashire Evening Post
A good read – in Rail Magazine books of the year 2011
The author does take us along memory lane , but his description of each route also encapsulates a taste of 21st century Britain gleaned from talking to the people he meets along the way … an intriguing social snapshot. - Heritage Railway
The author's superb narrative, interspersed with dry humour, acute observations and some excellent anecdotes that make you 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 ... I enjoyed this book immensely. It's a great anytime read and hope the publishers can be persuaded to to commission a second volume. - Railway Magazine
A magical world barely changed since the golden age of rail - Daily Mail
Williams manages to meet a range of characters who enliven the book and provide evidence of a Britain that is as forgotten as the lines on which he travels. That is the strength of the book. Williams does not just offer the journey but takes us through the history of each line and importantly meets the people who have campaigned to keep them open or ensure their smooth operation ... - Christian Wolmar, The Oldie
Deep in our soul, the railways represent an idyll that we love - Independent
23 December 2011
I went on the Jeremy Vine Show this week to talk about the new updated paperback of On the Slow Train Again: twelve more great British railway journeys, out in February. Amazing how many of us have an interest in railways! (You can find the interview on the BBC iPlayer, 12.30 Wednesday)
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