A beautifully illustrated guide to the trains that took over as the Age of Steam was drawing to a close in the 1950s. Ideal for anyone interested in Britain's railways and the evolution of rail transport.After the Second World War, the drive for the modernisation of Britain's railways ushered in a new breed of locomotive: the Diesel. Diesel-powered trains had been around for some time, but faced with a coal crisis and the Clean Air Act in the 1950s, it was seen as ...

For Britain’s railways, the 1970s was a time of contrasts, when gallows humour about British Rail sandwiches and delayed trains often overshadowed real achievement, like ‘parkway’ stations and high-speed travel. The Seventies Railway begins with the optimism of the new decade. It describes the electrification of the West Coast Main Line, the introduction of new computer systems, and the giving of grants for socially vital services. But while speeds were climbing, and finances appeared to b...

Under-maintained and over-worked during the Second World War, Britain’s railways emerged from the conflict carrying a ‘poor bag of physical assets’. Yet the new government of 1945 saw a need to bring the nation’s great industries into public ownership – a move that saw the creation of a single railway network three years later. At first, it seemed like ‘business as usual’, but as the 1950s dawned and BR’s deficit grew deeper, it was clear that costs needed to be cut wherever possible. And ...

This is a portrait of a railway network that became beloved of the last generations lucky enough to experience mainline steam. The 1960s saw great change in British society, which was moving ever further from the deference that had been ebbing since the Great War and ever faster towards the ‘white heat’ of new technology. For British Railways, the move to modernise had begun the previous decade, though it soon became clear that it would have to rationalise its network if it was to hold its...

Although the railways weren’t the first type of mass holiday transport – that prize goes to the steamships that preceded them – they helped develop many of Britain’s favourite seaside resorts. Holiday Trains follows this development, paying visits to Blackpool, Margate, Southport and Weston-super-Mare, and also looking at the other sorts of holiday that the railways made possible. Railways didn’t just take holidaymakers to the coast. Rambling and cycling grew in popularity between 1870 and...

This analysis of the causes, consequences, and human aspect of the December 1988 British train accident creates a definitive text on railway safety.Clapham was a pivotal point in British railway history. Much technology had been invented and applied to accident prevention by 1988; much more was to come. The Clapham Train Accident considers Clapham in its wider context, using official reports and expert interviews to describe both the causes and the terribl...

As Britain moved from austerity to prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s, it became clear that British Railways needed to modernise its equipment and rationalise its network if it was to hold its own in the face of growing competition from road and air transport.After attempting to maintain pre-war networks and technology in the 1950s, a reversal of policy in the 1960s brought line closures, new liveries and the last breath of steam, as Dr Beeching and his successors s...

Hugh Llewelyn has travelled throughout Britain to gather this collection of his photographs of the diesel shunters. In addition to the main classes deployed by British Railways from the 1940s up to the present time, he also covers many of the rarer engines to be found working the docks and industrial centres. The shunters are shown in great detail and the images include not only the preserved examples, but also many of the neglected engines either in storage or abandoned. The result is a f...

Running a railway is a complex business. However organised it is, there will always be surprises: often hilarious, frequently unexpected, but sometimes serious.Along Different Lines includes such bizarre 'everyday' events as coping with hurricanes, rogue locomotives and runaway wagons; PR successes and otherwise; the Brighton Belle, Flying Scotsman and Mallard; training-course capers; a wino invasion; trackside antics; the Eurost...

Used extensively and somewhat taken for granted by millions of commuters and tourists every day, the London Underground has long been a part of our national heritage and way of life. It was the first underground railway in the world, and is now central to lives of millions of Londoners. Here Ben Pedroche explores the realities of building the railway from the beginning, 150 years ago, exploring this dangerous, back-breaking job and how it culminated in the rail system we s...

For British Rail, the 1970s was a time of contrasts, when bad jokes about sandwiches and pork pies often belied real achievements, like increasing computerisation and the arrival of the high-speed Inter-City 125s.But while television advertisements told of an 'Age of the Train', Monday morning misery continued for many, the commuter experience steadily worsening as rolling stock aged and grew ever more uncomfortable. Even when BR launched new electrification scheme...

Britain's rail network is now among the safest in the world, but the journey that brought it to that point has been long and eventful. Early incidents like the felling of William Huskisson MP by Stephenson's Rocket (1830) showed how new ideas could bring new dangers; yet from disaster came new safety measures, and within fifty years better signalling and braking methods had been made mandatory. The twentieth century saw accident repeatedly lead to action and further advances in rolling sto...