Bill Middleton’s new book is a collection of stories about favourite train journeys by this inveterate railway enthusiast and train traveller. A half century career as an engineer, Naval officer and university administrator took Middleton to almost every part of the globe, and everywhere he took with him an abiding interest in railways, and a notebook and camera to record his experiences. His North American journeys have included experiences as diverse as the long journey through Manitoba to polar bear country on Hudson Bay, a trip to Minnesota’s Mesabi Range to haul a boatload of iron ore to Lake Superior behind a giant Yellowstone articulated steam locomotive, or the trip between Costa Rica’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts by narrow gauge railway. His European travels have ranged from a Pullman seat on the crack London-Paris Golden Arrow to the slow trip across Thrace on one of the last runs of the celebrated Simplon-Orient Express. In Asia he travelled through the Toros Mountains of Turkey on the famous Istanbul-Baghdad Toros Express, experienced modern high-speed railroading in the cab of Japan’s Bullet Train, and rode to Asia’s highest mountain east of the Himalayas on the little trains of Taiwan’s Ali Shan Forestry Railway.