Last Call for the Dining Car

Ever since Paul Theroux first embarked in London on the first train of his Great Railway Bazaar, railways have been a rich source for the best travel writing. These days, with our awareness of the global warming implications of endless air travel and the opportunity to jump on a train at magnificent St Pancras and be whisked straight to the continent, train travel has assumed a new importance and romance -- which is why so many more tour companies are offering a great train ride as part of their holiday itineraries. Now, Michael Kerr, the Telegraph's deputy Travel Editor, has burrowed deep in the newspaper's archives and collected together the very best of its writing about railway journeys. Here are journeys non-stop from London to Vladivostok, across the Canadian Rockies, the first train across Australia from Darwin to Alice Springs, on the teeming, crawling, travelling adventure of Indian railways. But there is also Boris Johnson discovering his ",inner McEnroe", thanks to signal failure in the Midlands, and Michael Palin sampling the delights of British Rail Inter-City. This is an anthology that will appeal to the railway buff and the armchair traveller alike, to everyone who has ever Inter-railed in their youth, and everyone nostalgic for the days when the only way to cross a continent was by train.