The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are three separate European countries that have their own railway systems, with much integration between each other. They are united by all running regular passenger train services, mostly hourly or more frequent, within each country and beyond. Nederlandse Spoorwegen supplies the principal rail service within the Netherlands, supplemented by other operators such as Arriva and Syntus, who run a few local lines. All the passenger services within Belgi...

Britain’s biggest county, Yorkshire, was particularly affected by the period of deregulation. Many independents have fallen by the wayside over the years but others have come to take their places. The blue buses of Samuel Ledgard of Leeds, the red ones of Connor & Graham in Hull and the delightful colours of Felix Motors of Hatfield may now be only memories, yet there are still plenty of other small businesses providing bus services within the boundaries of Yorkshire. These vary from Powel...

In Aircraft Stories noted sociologist of technoscience John Law tells “stories” about a British attempt to build a military aircraft—the TSR2. The intertwining of these stories demonstrates the ways in which particular technological projects can be understood in a world of complex contexts.Law works to upset the binary between the modernist concept of knowledge, subjects, and objects as having centered and concrete essences and the postmodernist notion that all is fragmente...

By 1970, the boundaries of the county of Kent had been finalised, with parts, including Bexley, Bromley and Erith, being lost to Greater London. The capital’s red buses were still to be found in Dartford; otherwise the rest of west Kent was the territory of London Country Bus Services. The centre of the county, including the Medway towns and Maidstone, was where one could find Maidstone & District’s mainly Leyland fleet. Maidstone was also home to the last municipal operator in Kent, final...

Though British Rail had dispensed with steam locomotives by 1968, the greatest changes to the capital’s railways occurred afterwards. In the early years of the 1970s much of the network was run down and some parts not expected to survive. Non-corridor passenger stock, all painted in drab blue, dominated suburban services. Inter-city routes had loco-hauled stock in blue and grey. Many lines were still controlled by semaphore signals. Much needed investment came in the form of electrificatio...

Over more than fifty years, the railways of the Eastern Counties have seen a great number of changes. In the early 1970s, many stations, even some of the smaller ones, had a resident diesel shunter for moving empty carriages or servicing the goods yard. First generation diesel multiple units ran most of the secondary lines, with locomotive-hauled expresses being used on the InterCity routes and the Harwich boat trains. Today, modern electric trains speed northwards to Norwich and Kings Lyn...

Money and Trade Considered, With a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money was so much more than a mere proposal for a note-issuing bank. It was a staggeringly original work of genius which not only included proposals for new systems of banking, and the issuing of paper money as a means to stimulate the economy, but also revealed, for the first time, several of the most significant economic concepts ever devised; concepts which would later be espoused by economists such as Adam Smith ...

The boundaries of the current county of Lancashire were established in 1974 when the Furness district was lost to the newly formed Cumbria. Meanwhile Merseyside and Greater Manchester gobbled up much of the southern portion of the original county. However, some parts of the former West Riding of Yorkshire were gained. The major bus operator was, for many years, Ribble Motor Services. After sale it became part of the Stagecoach Group, though the East Lancashire operations were sold on to Bl...

Suffolk was once the territory of the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company, with two municipal operators and several notable independents also running bus services in the county. Eastern Counties eventually became part of the First Bus Group. Lowestoft Corporation Transport, later known as Waveney District Council, sold out in 1977. The other local authority-owned operator, Ipswich Buses, is one of the few examples left in the United Kingdom. The independent sector has expanded considerably wi...

John Law has been photographing Britain’s buses since the early 1970s. In this book, he takes us through the buses of Cambridgeshire, run by the National Bus Company, which had absorbed the services run in the area by Tilling & British Automobile Traction (who themselves had taken over Eastern Counties Omnibuses). In preparation for bus deregulation, National Bus Company’s Cambridgeshire operations were transferred to Cambus Ltd, which was sold and eventually absorbed into the Stagecoach G...

Matt Kinlers world is turned upside down in one telephone call. When the former FBI agent answers the call, he learns an informant from his FBI days is in trouble. The caller claims to be the informants daughter. Matt knows of no such daughter. How could he? The man dropped out of sight over twenty years ago. He responds out of loyalty, but he has no idea where the informant lives or what name he has assumed.There are only two men who would want to hunt Jesse Lopez down and kill hi...

Essex has long been full of interest for followers of Britain’s bus industry. The western side of the county has always fallen under the influence of London, even to the extent that places like Romford, Upminster and Ilford were transferred into the newly created Greater London in 1974. The dominant operator in Essex was Eastern National, which started life in London under the auspices of Thomas Clarkson in 1909. The company later became part of the Tilling Group, followed by the British T...