Michael Williams:
author & journalist

Michael is a journalist, academic and author – writing, blogging and broadcasting on railways and the media. He is also a travel writer, having covered the world for a variety of publications. Read more…

The Trains
Now Departed

Michael Williams’s most recent book The Trains Now Departed: Sixteen excursions into the lost delights of Britain’s railways is published by Arrow Books. Find out more about Michael’s other books, including ‘On the Slow Train’, ‘On the Slow Train Again’ and ‘Steaming to Victory’.

Ministers deliver blow on bicentenary of Britain’s railways

September 25, 2025

CHUFFED to be asked by the National Archive to do a presentation for the bicentenary of Britain’s railways next week, commemorating the first passenger train on the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825. No sooner had I settled down to my laptop than the news came in yesterday that the government were halting plans for a high-speed line between Liverpool and Manchester – which currently has a pretty terrible service with outdated trains. Dumb timing, and an insult to the […]

MICHAEL'S BOOKS