Trains to the Sea

by Williams, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781847948274
• ISBN10: 1847948278
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2019-07-01
• Publisher: Random House UK

Summary

The British seaside was created by the railways—and the fortunes of Britain’s seaside towns have almost always paralleled those of their railway lines. This account of traveling on the Great British Seaside Holiday is part social history, part documentary, part personal quest, and part nostalgic evocation of the trains to the sea. The book has a strong contemporary as well as historical feel, and contains much first-hand reporting to support the thesis that the decline of many of Britain’s seaside towns today is linked to the decline or loss of their railway lines. No equivalent book to this has ever been written—Trains to the Sea is the definitive history of that great British institution.

Author Biography

Michael Williams is the author of On the Slow Train, On the Slow Train Again, Steaming to Victory, and The Trains Now Departed. Michael is a journalist and academic, writing, broadcasting, and blogging on transport, society, the media and other issues of the day for the national media and many other outlets, including the Independent, Independent on Sunday, BBC, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, New Statesman, Tablet, History Channel, as well as the specialist and business press. Michael is also a leading travel writer, reporting on journeys around the world for a variety of publications. In his academic role, he is co-editor and author of the book The Future of Quality News Journalism. Formerly, he was deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday, executive editor of the Independent, and head of news and features at the Sunday Times. Previously he was a member of the home news staff of the Times in London. In addition, Michael Williams is chairman of the Springdene Care Homes group in London and external examiner in the School of Media and Communication at Goldsmiths University, London.