Train Teasers: A Quiz Book for the Cultured Trainspotter

Description

When was smoking banned on trains? Which actor restored kippers to the menu of the Brighton Belle? What regular lineside event did Dickens describe as 'a shave in the air'? Perfect for a trivia night or a long trip, Train Teasers will both test your knowledge of this country's rail system and enlighten you on the most colourful aspects of its long history. Meet trunk murderers, trainspotters, haters of railways, railway writers, Ministers for Transport good and bad, railway cats, dogs and a railway penguin. This is NOT a book for number-crunching nerds. Many of the answers are guessable by the intelligent reader. It is a quiz, yes, but also a cavalcade of historical incident and colour relating to a system that was the making of modern Britain.

Andrew Martin is a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction books, some with a railway theme. His previous railway books for Profile are Underground, Overground, Night Trains, Belles & Whistles, Steam Trains Today. He is also the author of Seats of London, about the seat coverings (or moquette) on London Tubes and buses. Powder Smoke, the tenth title in Andrew's award-winning series of novels featuring the railway policeman, Jim Stringer, was published recently in paperback. (Other titles in this series include The Necropolis Railway, Death on a Branch Line, The Last Train to Scarborough.) Andrew's memoir, Yorkshire - There and Back, is out now in hardback. His website is at jimstringernovels.com.

'Praise for Andrew Martin: 'Andrew Martin has cornered the train market. He is the Bard of the Buffer, the Balladeer of the Blue Train, the Laureate of Lost Property ... the best sort of travel-writer: inquisitive, knowledgeable, lively, congenial' - Mail on Sunday 'Martin is entertaining company, alive to the history of his route ... leaves you with renewed confidence that trains can still be the most civilised way to travel' - FT 'You do not have to be a trainspotter to enjoy this book. It is social history, a kind of epitaph to a way of travel that seems to be lost, at least in Europe' - Spectator