Unfortunately not a review of Leiji Matsumoto's "Galaxy Express 999", or of Kenji Miyazawa's "Night on the Galactic Railroad", or even the wonderful animated f

Unfortunately not a review of Leiji Matsumoto's "Galaxy Express 999", or of Kenji Miyazawa's "Night on the Galactic Railroad", or even the wonderful animated film based on the latter. Even so, it's a nice review of a book on the history of British railways. "...I lack the trainspotter’s enthusiasm for locomotives, and I’ve had some horrible journeys on that train. But the theatrical grandeur of [a locomotive's] arrival always alters my sense of my surroundings, as if a door had opened, offering a glimpse of an intricate, sprawling structure normally not seen at all, and never perceptible as a whole except through some transcendental sleight of imagination: the railways."