The latest issue of Harper’s has a piece by Kevin Baker, a contributing editor of the magazine, on “The lost glories of America’s railroads”. At the moment, only subscribers can read it in full, but every visitor to the Harper’s website can see, argue with and add to Baker’s selection of “the 23 best train songs ever written – maybe”.

A few more? See the list I compiled, with suggestions from colleagues, when I published my first of two anthologies of Telegraph writing on railway journeys. Sadly, for some reason the links to the sound files on Grooveshark no longer work. Maybe it’s time I put together a new one…

And don’t forget that great poetry anthology recently edited by Sean O’Brien and Don Paterson for Faber and simply titled Train Songs.