Update: Books of rail secrets that the public were never meant to know about.

First of all, a huge thanks to all those that have pre-ordered the new book ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Train to the Midlands’ and thanks also to those that have pre-ordered the second print run of ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Train to London’. When printed, both titles will have reached 2,000 copies – quite something for a railway book! Book three in the trilogy should be released next year. Good sales, at least in part, are as a result of glowing reviews and Chime Whistle Publishing has been fortunate to have received these in the national press and from personalities such as Christian Wolmer.

Both titles are very near to being printed – the London book will go to print the same time as the Midland book because of the economies of scale, which helps keep unit prices down. There are only around 20 unreserved copies remaining of each title – approx 980 of each having already been reserved.

There has been a slight delay in printing due to the ever changing news of HS2 being cancelled north of Birmingham (now we hear that it may actually reach Euston), new trains being introduced, old trains (such as 323s in the West Midlands) being transferred and the Midland Metro extension being approved – to name just a few developments. Such things can put a publisher in a dilemma. Does one go to print, knowing that the book will be out of date within a few weeks of it rolling off the production line or does one hold back and wait until things are settled and produce a book that will be up to date? Realistically, and readers prefer it, the second option is the only real option, even though it means a complete redesign of many pages that had already been set out before the aforementioned events happened. However, it results in a book that is bang up to date.

The ‘A Funny Thing books’ are a mix of humour, horror and history – much of it never in the public domain before now. This is because I’ve had access to internal reports and front line staff have been happy to speak candidly about their experiences. Some of the incidents are described in very graphic detail. As one train driver told me “Trespassing would stop overnight if the pubic knew exactly what happens when a train hits a body and how the remains are shovelled into a bin liner”. Another explained how a smartly dressed middle aged woman jumped in front of his HST and how she “exploded in a pink ball of flesh and bones”. One driver saying how “At first I felt shock, but sitting at home it turned to anger and I wondered how could she do that to me?”. Raw emotions that the public just don’t hear about. Press officers certainly don’t like talking about it.

At the other end of the scale, we have drivers giving prostitutes cab rides on parcel trains after they missed the last train from London and partner swapping on the Great Western sleeper, along with the story of Tiddles the Paddington station cat who was once named ‘Fattest cat in the uK’, a gigantic sex toy found on a train, a driver having his teeth punched out by a passenger, passengers being served chlorine instead of coffee and drivers stripping off naked in the hot weather – only being found out after taking selfies and emailing them to other drivers!

Every page of the book is hand crafted (NO drag and drop!) so the design makes reading the book a pleasure and also shows off the pictures (of which there are approx 300 colour pics in each book) to their best advantage on the sewn bound pages. We insist on sewn bound pages, as these are far superior to perfect bound books – which many railway books are – and which are often the same price (or more) of our sewn bound books. We also use top quality paper for the best reproduction. Our readers deserve the best.

Links to books. Now down to VERY limited stock.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Train to the Midlands: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/afunnythinghappenedonthetraintothemidlands

A Funny Thing Happened on the Train to London: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-train-to-london