Are the wheels beginning to turn? Hit play. While the chorus (and I think the video that came with it) conjures up images of fast travel on a motorway, the song's opening suggests the rising momentum of a train pulling out of the station, by the time Shane P Carter's wailing the title refrain, we're really getting a move on, even by Kiwi standards.

Inspired, as far as I know, by the New York subway, but just the right tempo for a New Zealand train getting it on in a city's inner suburbs.

My introduction to the music of the Duke, although in researching this playlist, I discovered the crucial role played by another African American genius, Billy Strayhorn, not just in writing this track, but his influence on Ellington in general. In a different place and time the quietly spoken Strayhorn would have been a classical pianist, but racism got in the way. Classical music's loss was Jazz's gain. Music in general probably came out ahead as well.

For that moment when you realise, not long into the journey, that you're on holiday.

Depending on what end of the country you're travelling from, you should be in South Auckland or Porirua by now. Tom Scott is from out west, but his stomping ground is close to where my family first settled in Auckland, and the West Auckland line was my introduction to rail travel. Scott's ingenious fusion of jazz and Kiwi Hip Hop is the perfect soundscape for those urban spaces beyond the (un)affordable inner city suburbs.

Inspired, partly, by the true story of Austrian Philosopher, Wilhelm Reich, and his efforts to invent a rainmaking machine. I always heard a steam engine puffing through this song, and isn't a steam locomotive the original cloudbuster? Is that not a whistle at the final cadence?

Chosen because an Italian filmmaker, Alessandro Manfredi, used it as the sound track to a video featuring lots of European trains in fast motion, and it works! Reich wrote this minimal masterpiece in the mid-80s. I was lucky enough to hear the LSO perform it with Tilson-Thomas a few years later, and like Manfredi in his video, best to let the music's end blend with the white noise of the train itself.

You're well out of the city now, the train's been going at a good clap for a while, you've gone for a wander down to the buffet and back, time for a bit of early 70s up tempo pop.

Country music is full of lyrics about lonesome whistles, and Australia is full of great long distance trains running through the outback. Floods closed the branch line to the New South Wales settlement in 1984, but the trains are still running in Tex's immortal mid-30s number.

For those moments of splendid introspection brought on by hours of watching countryside rolling by, while remaining motionless.

The brilliant Tunisian Oud player recorded this for ECM in 2005. Who is Sahar? Is it coincidence that the name Sahar is just one vowel away from Sahara? Either way, every long journey has its melancholy moments. Marvellous melancholy.

Just as the lonesome whistle is to country and the blues, so is the train itself to Gospel. So many gospel trains. I chose to ride this one.

Because railway lines so often follow river valleys, and because this song is heartachingly beautiful.

If you travel through the central North Island, in fact if you travel anywhere by long distance train in New Zealand, the country's going to get big on you, or the sky, or the sea, or all three at once. This is the big vista song.

Another lonesome whistle song. One of the greatest.

Lead by the remarkable Jenny M Thomas, who combines fiddle with the rich tradition of Indian Carnatic Classical violin, mixes in some jazz for good measure, and covers Australian folk songs like no one else.

Dreamy techno. Starts slow then builds up speed. Possibly after leaving Otorahonga, or passing through Waiouru.

Always found the original track (from Joni Mitchell's otherwise masterful The Hissing of Summer Lawns) the weakest link in the album, and I've always struggled with Cohen's sub-audible voice, but when he speaks, Mitchell's lyrics come to life, with Hancock's keys the perfect counterpoint.

If only there was an overnight train for this to accompany.  Alas, not in New Zealand (see below). A modern take on a 1930s  documentary soundtrack, produced for the British Post Office, scripted by W H Auden, with music by his composer friend, Benjamin Britten.

Well, if you've made it this far down the playlist it probably has been.

Scotland by rail is magical. They don't do mournful whistles, but they've got the pipes. I recall taking the overnight train from Fort William to London Euston. I asked the guard when the lights were going out? "When you close your eyes".

Another sentimental choice, as I helped with one of Anthonie's public transport themed gigs, presenting a reading from an old NZR publicity brochure for the long dead Silver Star overnight express between Auckland and Wellington. Anthonie's easily the smoothest Kiwi rail enthusiast since Marcus Lush went off the rails, but more of a romantic with it.

The video was shot in the backseat of a car (a taxi perhaps?) with the sort of retrospective vibe that might come at journey's end.

"It'll take a long long time to reach the end of the line, like I did".

The track to play as we approach our destination, as the buildings close in, and the rhythm slows, as the rail line fans out into rail yards. I'm always a little sad as we pull into the station, always a little hungry for the next adventure.