BLOOD, IRON AND GOLD

Christian Wolmar (Atlantic, £25)

When I caught the Blue Train in Cape Town at the start of its journey to Pretoria, I was surprised to see the baggage handlers wearing white gloves, as if they were attendants at a wedding.

It was the beginning of Rhodes’s Cape-to-Cairo route, and there were 11 butlers aboard, personally serving fewer than a hundred passengers. It was, of course, known as a grand hotel on wheels.

Travel the globe and you will find an iron road of luxury and poverty side by side.

The British Empire certainly did not exist without it and even the Great War would have faltered if trains had not sped soldiers to the Western Front.

The Nazis used them infamously and brilliant engineering filled continents with pioneers and adventurers.

Wolmar’s book is an everest of exploration as it seeks to show how the railways transformed the world.

There is a magnificence about the railways, from Switzerland to Siberia, and arch-expert Wolmar showers blessings on their past— as when the Liverpool to Manchester debut caused a sensation. Later, the advent of new resorts such as the Lake District would raise the ire of the poets such as Wordsworth.

Crossing America in luxury was the dream of the 19th century, while India’s vast rail network was over-shadowed only by the Pyramids in its great vision.

There has always been a price to pay, however.

The construction of the Panama railway was a death trap for the vast army of “navvies” who built it.

Some 6,000 workers died while building it — 120 for each mile of track laid, with suicide mania gripping the whole enterprise. Meanwhile, elephants shunted rolling stock in India and huge challenges were confronted in the mountain passes of Europe. While shareholders made fortunes, the natives lost their lands.