The best way to see a country is from the footplate of a locomotive.

- George Dow

Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return.
- EM Forster

There's something completely romantic about train journeys. They can also be horrendous. It's possible to experience a broad range of human emotion on a train: from the dreamy, poetic state of near-visionary contemplation played out against an Elgaresque backdrop of hills, fields and bustling hedgerows; to the packed-like-cattle crush of peak-time exasperation, pressed against the worst of our own humanity, bad-tempered, foul-breathed - and you have to pay through the nose for the privilege as well.

Trains and railway journeys belong to the realm of the emotions. They evoke and they inspire just as much as they give rise to frustration. This week we'd love to hear your thoughts, theories and reminiscences concerning train journeys. It's over to you. Choo choo....

• How do you feel about the general state of the railways in Britain today? Do you yourself use trains a lot?

• Do you think rail travel is becoming increasingly relatively expensive? Would you use trains more if fares were lower?
• Have you ever been on a really great train journey? If so, please let us hear about it?

• Are there any great British rail journeys you can recommend to us?

• Have you heard of the Beeching Report? If so, do you think it marked 'the end of the line' for Britain's rural rail infrastructure? Or did it actually pave the way for a leaner, meaner more efficient service?

• Are there any ecological benefits associated with rail transport?

• Do train journeys fire the imagination? Do they somehow add a philosophical, contemplative dimension to the lives of railway passengers, forced as they are to do nothing whatsoever but think or read or even write for the journey's duration?

• If you were in charge, what would you do with Britain's trains and railway system?