To the Sea by Train

Name: To the Sea by Train
Rating: 4.1 (187 reviews)

by Andrew Martin

First published 2025

Amazon

4.0(187)

Andrew Martin tells the history of the British seaside holiday through the railway lines that carried millions of travellers from industrial cities to resorts around the coast. The expansion of Victorian railways helped transform places such as Brighton, Scarborough and other coastal towns, making the sea accessible to mass tourism and creating distinctive seasonal patterns of excursion traffic.

The book follows that relationship into the twentieth century, through excursion trains, holiday camps and the peak years of railway seaside travel before increasing car ownership and changing holiday habits weakened many traditional routes and resorts after the Second World War. Martin combines transport history with social history to show how the train helped define the British idea of going away to the sea.