Two men started the transformation from sleepy hilltop community into a thriving town. Gooch and Brunel chose the area near Swindon to build a factory for the Great Western Railway and for more than 140 years The Works was renowned for high-quality heavy engineering. Gooch, Armstrong, Dean, Churchward and Collett would be responsible for the design and building of some of the world’s finest locomotives and stock. In 1948 the GWR became British Railways and later diesels replaced steam. In ...

A superb guide to Britain's villages, towns and connecting railways, dating from 1866.'Hard to put down ... truthful and opinionated, often funny but never predictable ... the finest travelling companion.' – Michael Portillo on George Bradshaw.Unavailable for many years and much sought after, this classic guide book is now faithfully reissued for a new generation. Bradshaw's Railway Handbook was originally published in 1866 under the title Brad...

Brown celebrates the survival of our railway heritage in stations that have been saved or remain in use.Despite the "green" benefits of rail travel, Canada has lost much of its railway heritage. Across the country stations have been bulldozed and rails ripped up. Once the heart of communities large and small, stations and tracks have left little more than a gaping hole in Canada’s landscapes. This book revisits the times when railways were the country’s economic lifelines, and the ...

Have you ever wanted to travel around Europe and see all the beautiful places this great land has to offer? If you travel by airplane, you miss so much being in the air. If you travel by vehicle, you are cramped for hours and days and by the time you arrive to your destinations you are worn out. The train offers a great mode of transportation giving you the opportunity to relax while you observe the landscape from your window.Train travel is a fantastic way to see the continent of ...

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...

In Signalman's Twilight, Adrian continues the story of his railway life in rural West Berkshire. Adrian revelled in the gentle, old-world atmosphere and seized every opportunity, on duty and off, to talk to the older railwaymen, many of whom had begun their careers on the GWR in 1919 - 21, some of whom had served in the trenches with the Wiltshire Regiment in 1916 - 18, and others of whom had worked for the Midland & South Western Junction Railway in 1913 on to 1921, 'when we took over the...

An examination of four hundred years of railways in Shropshire, from the primitive wagonways of the pre-railway age to the county's current rail network and services. Fully illustrated with almost two hundred monochrome and colour photos, Shropshire Railways is an ideal resource for anyone with an interest in this county with its rich railway history, and home to one of Britain's top heritage railways. Including detailed route maps and a survey of timetables over the years, the book covers...

The formative years of Britain's railway network produced a host of ideas, activities and characters, quite a few of which now seem not only highly unusual, but sometimes little short of ridiculous. Weird schemes and designs, extravagant behaviour, reckless competition and larger-than-life characters all featured in the genuine struggle of the railway system to evolve. While the dawning of regulation and common sense brought about more uniform and responsible practices, fa...

While the first public passenger-carrying railway operated between Liverpool and Manchester from 1830, it was the construction of the Grand Junction and London & Birmingham that created the first long-distance, inter-city route from 1838. The meeting point of these two independent companies was Birmingham. The new railways came to benefit the town, through the carriage of goods, parcels and passengers and complimenting the already extensive canal network in the area. In addition to the Lon...

In the mid-1950s there were rumours that the Northern line was to be upgraded from manual operation to an automated line. This involved twelve manned signal boxes with a total of forty-one signalmen, eventually reduced to thirteen signalmen after automation. Automating the Northern Line describes how the line was operated manually, then progressed via the various stages involved in the modernisation to a fully automated line, from the point of view of a signalman/regulating room operator w...

Running a railway is a complex business, constantly throwing up drama, misadventure and the unexpected. Geoff Body and Bill Parker have collated a rich selection of railwaymen's memories and anecdotes to create an enjoyable book of escapades and mishaps, illustrating the daily obstacles faced on the railways, from handling the new Eurostar to train catering, nights on the Tay Bridge to rail 'traffic cops', and from mystery derailments to track subsidence. However interesti...

This textbook attempts to details in depth the various concepts needed for the planning of rail transport. This textbook represents perhaps the first attempt anywhere to dfescribe in detail the processes involved in transport planning. The book is a combination of discussion on engineering systems, network analysis, economics, and detailed analysis of specific engineering systems. The first two parts of the book are devoted to an extensive discussion of the different engineering systems ne...