Best rail views of London

They may not be the most romantic railway lines in Britain - but they are probably the most used.

This week public figures were invited to nominate their favourite rail approach to London, and give reasons why.

The answers ranged from lyrical descriptions of London landscapes during the trundle into the great termini to dismissive rejections of all routes to the capital.

The most bizarre response came from film maker and gourmand Michael Winner who said he preferred "the one that passes the poster of me at Clapham Junction".

In total 100 "eminent travellers" were selected by Country Life magazine to name their favourite stretch of railway in Britain and the best London approach. While

the spectacular Durham to Berwick section of the East Coast Main Line was the clear national winner, there was far less agreement on London.

Several contributors said all the routes were "perfectly ghastly".

Writer and broadcaster Jonathan Meades said: "They are all dispiriting. There is on every line, as Cyril Connolly noted, 'a precise point at which one's heart sinks.' " Biographer William Shawcross was even more dismissive. "The best trains are all out of London, especially from Paddington to Cornwall."

Jools Holland nominated Greenwich to Charing Cross. As the train passes through Waterloo "the passenger can always meet the ghost of someone from an old British film beneath the station clock, or just stay on to be spewed out in the Charing Cross Road". Michael Palin remembered the defunct Great Central Railway line into Marylebone.

Ptolemy Dean, the architect who appeared in the BBC's Restoration series, said his favourite was the short " Dickensian" stretch from London Bridge to Charing Cross, comparing the views to the paintings of London by Canaletto.