The railway revolution opened up new destinations, expanded our culinary horizons and dramatically improved trade. Jonathan Self takes us on a whistle-stop tour of ‘railway mania’

TONY STREETER looks at how - and why - the capital’s major rail routes arrive into different termini to form a ring around the central London area

Getting to the heart of the matter

Something to say? This is your platform...

Although some perceived the advent of the locomotive as a threat to the countryside, by allowing artists a quick and easy way to travel, it broadened their choice of painting horizons, discovers Carla Passino

Railways gave criminals a vast pool of people from which to target victims - and at the same time offered a new, fast means of escape and a chance to remain anonymous. TONY STREETER and GEORGE DENT don their deerstalkers and head back in time…