You think you know British Rail.

Stale sandwiches, inefficiency, and violent yellow carriages: we haven't looked kindly on the last of our state-owned organizations to be privatized.

But through its 50-year lifetime, British Rail transformed our transport system, and for a time provided one of the fastest regular rail services in the world.

Born into postwar austerity, impoverished, and exploited by a hostile press, British Rail became a punchline, dismissed and swept away by Conservative government.

Now, Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on public loss in a time of privatization. British Rail is ripe for a new history.