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Books > Sport & Leisure > Transport: general interest > Road & motor vehicles: general interest > General
London Transport was formed in 1933 to bring together all the
public transport operations (except national railways) that served
the capital, the suburbs and the surrounding countryside.
Previously, these had been in the hands of a myriad of operators,
some more dependable than others. Containing some 120 colour
photographs, including rare images from the postwar period, and
detailed captions, this album shows the transition from prewar
standards, which initially continued after the Second World War, to
the modernisation that was essential to encourage continued use of
London's transport systems by the public in the face of increasing
car ownership. Rekindling memories of the postwar period, this
nostalgic colour portrait looks at London Transport's buses,
trolleybuses, trams and underground trains (both surface and tube
stock) operating between 1949 and 1974.
Merseyside can claim, with some justification, to have provided the
transport enthusiast with a greater variety of transport modes than
anywhere else in Britain. By the 1950s, with many long-standing
scenes about to disappear, photographers began faithfully to record
what they saw in colour. It is these images, including road, rail,
sea and other modes of transport, that illustrate this nostalgic
pictorial portrait of key aspects of the richly varied scene.
Taking the reader on a journey from Liverpool and its suburbs to
Birkenhead and Wallasey, with one small detour to include views of
the remarkable Runcorn Transporter Bridge, this book gives a
full-colour view of the historic transport that was part of the
Merseyside townscape from the 1950s to the 1970s.
The city of York stands at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and
Foss on flat arable land called the Vale of York, which is bordered
to the west by the Pennines, to the northeast by the North York
Moors and to the east by the rolling Yorkshire Wolds. Outside the
city are many beautiful small country villages and bus operators
were needed to provide services linking these local villages and
towns with York, especially on market days. Consequently, routes
were very rural, and besides catering for the traditional market
day shoppers, they often carried a considerable volume of
passengers to work in York. This book, the follow-on to York
Independent: Eastern Stage Bus Operators, tells the story of stage
bus companies, including Hopes Motor Services, Hutchinson Brothers,
Reliance Motor Services, G E Sykes & Son and Majestic of
Cawood, who operated from the west of York. Including over 150
photographs, many in color, it shows how most of the companies
covered started out as family-based operators running a service to
the nearest local market town before expanding to offer excursions
and private hires. It also shows how changes to the way of life,
including the growth of car ownership, eventually killed off the
majority of them.
This book covers the tractor models that have stood out, from the
early twentieth century to the present day, either because of their
innovative design and engineering features or because they set new
standards in reliability and popularity. Beginning with the
background to the development of the first tractor, Jonathan
Whitlam takes us on a fascinating journey through a variety of
tractor types, both large and small, and their stand-out features.
This includes the Fordson F, the first mass produced tractor which
set the pattern for future tractor design; the Field Marshall,
which introduced diesel engines for tractors; the Ferguson TE20
with its novel three-point linkage; the Massey Ferguson 35 and
later 135, which stand out for sheer popularity; and the John Deere
3640, with its powerful six-cylinder engine and advanced cab. The
book also describes the computerised systems featured in many of
the latest tractors. Accompanied by superb colour photography of
all the tractors, this book has something for every tractor and
agricultural machinery enthusiast.
In African Motors, Joshua Grace examines how Tanzanian drivers,
mechanics, and passengers reconstituted the automobile into a
uniquely African form between the late 1800s and the early 2000s.
Drawing on hundreds of oral histories, extensive archival research,
and his ethnographic fieldwork as an apprentice in Dar es Salaam's
network of garages, Grace counters the pervasive narratives that
Africa is incompatible with technology and that the African use of
cars is merely an appropriation of technology created elsewhere.
Although automobiles were invented in Europe and introduced as part
of colonial rule, Grace shows how Tanzanians transformed them,
increasingly associating their own car use with maendeleo, the
Kiswahili word for progress or development. Focusing on the
formation of masculinities based in automotive cultures, Grace also
outlines the process through which African men remade themselves
and their communities by adapting technological objects and systems
for local purposes. Ultimately, African Motors is an
African-centered story of development featuring everyday examples
of Africans forging both individual and collective cultures of
social and technological wellbeing through movement, making, and
repair.
This lavishly produced book provides unique photographic insight
into the design and engineering of 15 landmark Ferrari road-car
engines, documenting the `inside view' of the engines - each one a
mechanical work of art. Photographer and journalist Francesco
Reggiani has been granted a `back-stage pass' at various
engineering specialists working on the restoration and servicing of
Cavallino Rampante engines, taking photographs to document the
restoration of some of the most beautiful Ferraris built by the
Maranello factory. During these assignments, he became fascinated
by the aesthetic appeal and engineering of the engines - the
pulsating hearts of the cars which they power - as he photographed
them both dismantled and assembled. Beginning with the
first-generation Ferrari V12 engine fitted to the 195 Inter in
1949, and progressing through V6s, normally aspirated and
turbocharged V8s and flat-12s to the latest 6.3-litre V12 fitted to
the four-wheel-drive FF, the engines are documented in detail, with
photographs of the components, assembled engines, and the cars in
which they are fitted. A history and technical overview is provided
for each engine and car featured, along with engine specifications,
taking the reader on a journey through the history of Ferrari's
engineering progress and technical innovation. Essential reading
for car enthusiasts, particularly fans of the Ferrari marque, those
interested in engineering, and anybody who appreciates the
mechanical artistry of Ferrari's superbly engineered engines
The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians,
street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and
1930. Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets
were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at
large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares
where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned
as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to
accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a
physical change but also a social one: before the city could be
reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be
socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was
not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent
revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define
and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the
crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering
a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road
hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars."
He considers the perspectives of all users-pedestrians, police (who
had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown
businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem,
not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that
pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for
"justice." Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic
in the name of "efficiency." Automotive interest groups, meanwhile,
legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking "freedom"-a
rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States.
Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the
automotive city in America and how social groups shape
technological change.
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