Unfortunately not a review of Leiji Matsumoto's "Galaxy Express 999", or of Kenji Miyazawa's "Night on the Galactic Railroad", or even the wonderful animated film based on the latter. Even so, it's a nice review of a book on the history of British railways.

"...I lack the trainspotter’s enthusiasm for locomotives, and I’ve had some horrible journeys on that train. But the theatrical grandeur of [a locomotive's] arrival always alters my sense of my surroundings, as if a door had opened, offering a glimpse of an intricate, sprawling structure normally not seen at all, and never perceptible as a whole except through some transcendental sleight of imagination: the railways."

A fine article--but not the awesome analysis of whether one could use a train as a form of space travel that I was hoping for.

A couple of years ago I read an SF novel where people traveled between the planets and star systems on trains. As I recall, the trains went through wormholes or something, with train stations at each end.

The name of the book escapes me right now. I don't suppose anyone here knows of it?

Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga involves interstellar travel on trains[1] which pass through artificial wormholes. I wouldn't recommend the books; he creates a world with so much potential, but the characters and story are disappointing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Saga#Technologica...

I really liked these books. Would love to know about some that you would recommend, then, you seem to be harder to convince than I am :)

Also, it seems he is currently writing a new trilogy in the same universe (The Chronicle of the Fallers), the first of which is already out. Haven't read it yet, however.

> I wouldn't recommend the books; he creates a world with so much potential, but the characters and story are disappointing.

Oh I would thoroughly disagree, I thought Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained were cracking reads even if they are a bit chunky. At no time did I feel either of the books hit any flat spots, I rattled through both of them in about two weeks whilst reading in my spare time.

That does seem the logical place for space trains is in an FTL universe with wormholes (or jump gates or star gates or whatever you want to call them). I was always sort of surprised that the Stargate shows never really explored the concept of trains, although Stargate: Atlantis got very, very close at a few points across its seasons.

(For what it may be worth, I had fun exploring the idea of trains in space in some short stories I wrote way back in high school and every now and then think about trying to write a longer space opera in such a setting, but I'm not very skilled a writer and day job needs must first.)

Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga series has trains travelling through wormholes.

I'm completely with you on this one. Downvoters have their hopes too low clearly.