Join travel writer and self-confessed “train nut” Tom Chesshyre as he celebrates 200 years of passenger railways on a zigzagging tour around the UK – where trains (proudly) began.

In a small market town in the northeast of England in 1825, something momentous happened: ticket-bearing human beings started moving along wrought-iron tracks on a contraption with engine-powered wheels. The contraption was called a “train”. What happened in Darlington, along a 26-mile line to Stockton, would kickstart the worldwide railway revolution.

Today, 1.3 million miles of tracks crisscross the planet. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of this groundbreaking event, Tom Chesshyre embarks on a journey around the country that invented trains, taking in many heritage lines maintained by armies of enthusiasts. On a long, circular series of rides beginning and ending in Darlington, Chesshyre enjoys the scenery, seeks out the history, dodges delays (best he can), reports on the current (often shambolic) state of British railways, and lets the rhythm of the clattering tracks reveal what it is about trains – especially wonderful old trains – that we love so much.

“Easy-going, discursive and digressive, even those to whom trains are a closed timetable will find this a charming travelogue.” – Stuart Maconie