Tonight sees the launch, at Stanfords in Covent Garden, London, of the latest book from that self-confessed “train nut” Tom Chesshyre. Slow Trains Around Britain was delivered, he assures us, “on time and within budget — unlike some unmentionable rail projects of late”. In it, he celebrates the bicentenary of George Stephenson’s first public steam trains for passengers, on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, while describing — after a 4,088-mile journey on 143 rides — what British trains are like today.