"A wonderful tour, full of vivid incident and surprising detail. Station by station, it also adds up to a portrait of London through the railway age and into our own time." --Simon Bradley, author and the joint editor of the celebrated Pevsner Architectural Guides
"Every London commuter should read this book - if commuting as we once knew it ever starts up again (and even if it doesn't). Fascinating histories abound from Queen Victoria's specially arranged signals to the driver to slow down on the way from Slough to Paddington, to Thomas Hardy's job of excavating graves to make way for tracks at St Pancras... " --Tom Chesshyre, author of eight travel books
"In this delightful homage to the capital's mighty icons of the railway age Wolmar is a worthy successor to Betjeman." --Michael Williams, Best-selling author of On the Slow Train
"London's twelve great rail termini are the epic survivors of the Victorian age. They are the cathedrals of transportation. Wolmar brings them to life with the knowledge of an expert and the panache of a connoisseur. His words render them indestructible." --Simon Jenkins, author of England's Hundred Best Views, and Mission Accomplished?
"Wolmar compellingly describes how engineers and architects creating terminus stations harked back to classical or Gothic styles. But, with the advantage of iron and glass, they could erect giant structures in months not centuries, whose scale justified the description "cathedrals of steam"." --Michael Portillo, British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative politician