To the Sea by Train

Evocatively describes the long-bygone age of travelling by train to seaside resorts. You can almost smell the sea and ice cream as Martin wittily blends memoir and social history’ * Observer *Martin’s whimsical little book, a feast of anecdotage, represents a memorial to the past that was not always an idyll * Sunday Times *Vividly conjures a lost age * Financial Times *Hugely entertaining and informative … The book, beautifully and amusingly written and prodigiously well-informed, is part travelogue and part history. It is the perfect book to accompany an old-fashioned railway excursion to the coast * Evening Standard *Charming and unashamedly trainspotterish … To spread joy about what’s left, [Martin] travels on lines to the coast that remain open, evoking his journeys in infectiously enthusiastic detail * Spectator *Martin… has a nudgingly humorous style, occasionally breaking out into the outright comedic, and a novelist’s ear for dialogue. Facts are lightly applied, the quirkier the better. [His] account of travelling through Euston and Birmingham New Street and on to the Cambrian Coast Line to Pwllheli is a standalone classic of observational comedy - I couldn’t stop laughing. * Country Life *Fascinating… There’s a pleasant undercurrent of nostalgia in this clever book…. Martin has a journalistic eye * The Oldie *Praise for Andrew Martin:‘Andrew Martin is the railway wizard * Telegraph *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 * Financial Times *

Andrew Martin is a rail expert and author. His previous titles include Underground, Overground, Night Trains, Belles & Whistles, Steam Trains Today and Train Teasers. He is also the author of Seats of London, a field guide to Transport for London’s iconic moquette patterns.