Despite working on trains I actually have little interest in them other than a means of getting from A to B. However, I have also been interested in history and in particular social history so when I was very generously given this book I decided to give it a whirl.

The book begins with London before the Tubes and explores the growth of separate railway companies and their subsequent combination, before bringing up to date at the time of publication including an interesting chapter on the Northern line during WWII. I was particularly drawn to the suggestion that the desire of Londoners to move out of the city into new estates in the suburbs and into fresh clean lead to a demise in the very benefits that they sought. This to me has echoes with today's city dwellers desire to 'escape to the country' which inevitably leads to the concreting over of the very thing that they claim to want most.

The book was first published in 1990 so is somewhat out of date now and the level of detail within is more suited to an enthusiast rather than the casual reader, it is still an interesting read. ( )