I have always loved rail travel, I remember travelling down to London for a day trip on a Saturday with my parents as a child. Maybe they are partly responsible after all.

A three hour journey down to Kings Cross Station, getting there around 10:00 and then the same 3 hours back late that afternoon. Since then it allowed me to get home from University for three years (always with a big bag of washing), travel across Europe, Australia and of the UK.

There are limitations to trains, its not point to point, it is relatively slow and in some countries can be a little less than prompt and reliable, but that is half the fun of it.

There are some fantastic on-line resources but my favourites are The Man In Seat 61 and is really the source of so much information about world train travel its hardly worth mentioning any others, but ill mention a couple more handy resources. Bahn.de which gives a reasonably reliable searchable Europe wide timetable and a book, well a series of books by Thomas Cook – the Overseas Timetables. Thomas cook also produce rail maps for Europe and the UK & Ireland, not essential but I love maps.