Middle Aged Virgin

Last month, executives of Richard Branson's Virgin companies rode a dingy and slightly delayed rail car—not, as it happened, one of Sir Richard's—up to England's East Midlands to unveil the first of a new line of super-fast tilting trains. The jet-shaped thing only crawled along a test track, but it would have been a beautiful sight for any boy who loves trains.

Or a grown man, for that matter. Virgin group director Will Whitehorn sprang up to one of the coaches and pressed his face to the shiny aluminum skin. He later told Branson: "You're going to...