The Glory of the Rails

In these brilliant essays the historian Tony Judt describes the singular contribution made by rail travel to our shared way of life. From the transformation of urban spaces to the reorganisation of our sense of time, it is impossible to imagine the world we live in without the economic and cultural changes that were wrought by rail travel. Above all, as Judt argues passionately here, the railways are a reminder of what can be achieved through collective human endeavours - of what it means 'to share public space to common advantage'.