History of rail travel [audio 30min]

Journalist John McCarthy travels to Britain's National Railway Museum in York to meet its director Andrew Scott and Ian Macbeth, former Managing Director of Great Railway Journeys. They take a look back at the past of rail travel in the form of some of the great steam trains that once broke speed records which rival those of today. McCarthy also discusses the current expansion of Europe’s high speed rail network, looks at the viability of magnetic levitation, and hears about the first new steam engine to be built in Britain for nearly fifty years. He stands on the footplate of a locomotive to learn the tricks of the trade from Tracey Parkinson, a fireman and driver, and settles himself into the comfort of a 1930s Pullman car to hear from Geoff and Sheelagh Cooke about the railway equivalent of the luxury cruise.