<p>The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails . . . There's something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in <i>Trains and Lovers</i>. <br> <br>As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner&mdash;and into his life. <br> <br>Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting, exploring the nature of love&mdash;and trains&mdash;in a collection of romantic, intertwined stories.</p>