To Matthew Engel the British railway system is the ultimate expression of the country's psyche. It represents all the nation's ingenuity, incompetence, nostalgia, corruption, humour, capacity for suffering, and even sexual repression.

In his attempt to understand this most British of mysteries, Matthew, half John Betjeman and half Victor Meldrew, travels the railway from Penzance to Thurso, exploring its remarkable history and its (often incredibly depressing) present. He meets the rudest railwayman in Britain, finds the most charmingly bizarre train and - after a quest lasting decades - an Individual Pot of Strawberry Jam. At once fiercely polemical and fondly nostalgic, "Eleven Minutes Late" is a very funny account of one man's love-hate relationship with the railways.