|
Books > Sport & Leisure > Transport: general interest > Trains & railways: general interest
This is the story of the train operating company First Great
Western, whose performance rose from being the worst for a
long-distance operator in the UK to becoming one of the best in a
few short years, and whose passengers felt so disgruntled they even
organised a fare strike. The franchise grew out of the Great
Western's privatisation in 1993; the company, as it currently
stands, was created after the merger of the First Great Western,
Great Western Link, and Wessex Trains franchises in 2006. However,
in 2008 the Department for Transport became so disillusioned with
the company that it issued a Remedial Notice Plan, the first step
to a holder losing its franchise-before a new management team
kick-started the company back into life. In this book, the reader
can find out how First Great Western became an award-winning train
operator after coming so close to losing the franchise; they can
also see photographs of the only Pullman Dining service in the UK,
on the Paddington- Penzance sleeper train.The reader can learn
about what goes on at one of First Great Western's main Traction
Maintenance Depots, and about how new life was breathed into
rolling stock that was old enough to be considered railway
heritage. This book also discusses how the electrification of the
Great Western Main Line will improve passenger services and cut
journey times.
Being an avid collector of old photographs, particularly those
featuring railways, well-known Yorkshire writer Peter Tuffrey was
aware of the vast photographic archives lurking in the depths of
the Yorkshire Post newspaper. Recently renewing his contact with an
old acquaintance and newspaper editor, Peter Charlton, the author
was presented with a marvellous opportunity to select some of these
photographs for use in Yorkshire Railways: From the Yorkshire Post
Archives. Under a number of interesting chapter headings such as
'Views from the Lineside', 'Staff', 'Crashes', 'On Shed and Works'
and 'Preserved Railways and Railway Stations', we see the many
different ways Yorkshire people have been involved with railways,
particularly in the days of steam. The lineside pictures have
amazing clarity, having been scanned and enhanced expertly from
large format glass plate negatives. But that is not to detract from
the book's other pictures, which have been carefully composed and
taken over the years by the Yorkshire Post's own reputable staff
photographers. The picture captions are well-researched,
informative and reflect Peter's eye for the unusual and
eccentric.Yorkshire Railways not only provides interest for the
real enthusiast but also for the social historians among us who
want to look back and get the feel for how it really was in the
days before Dr Beeching came along with his axe.
Nottingham-based Bill Reed, now 78, was a fireman on steam
locomotives in the early part of his working life, eventually
graduating to being a driver on diesel-electrics. Much of his spare
time has been taken up with photographing (in black and white and
using colour slides) many aspects of railways throughout Great
Britain, Europe (including the former Iron Curtain countries) and
in the USA. In this selection he has used convenient vantage points
on and off the East Coast main line to capture the Indian summer of
steam. Many of the familiar classes of locomotives A1s, A2s, A3s,
A4s (and their variants) are featured with pin point sharpness by
Bill. But a few early diesels are featured too like the prototype
Deltic. Familiar customs once associated with steam traction are
brought to mind again in a collection of over 220 black and white
images. An example is seen at Muskham Troughs where Gresley's
thirsty engines picked up water in a seemingly primitive but
effective way - in the middle of the track - to help speed them on
to their respective destinations. This book is part of one man's
life work of photographing the railways and his enthusiasm is
evident in every picture.
The Crosville bus company served large areas of the North West and
North Wales and is still fondly remembered today. Enjoy nostalgic
views of Crosville buses of years gone by plying their routes in
towns and villages in Cheshire, Liverpool and the Wirral,
Manchester, Lancashire, and parts of Derbyshire, Shropshire and
Staffordshire, contrasted with present-days views of the same
places today.
The arrival of the railway was one of the most far reaching events
in the history of the Victorian city. The present study, based upon
detailed case histories of Britain's five largest cities (London,
Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool), shows how the
railways gave Victorian cities their compact shape, influenced
topography and character of their central districts, and determines
the nature of suburban expansion. This book was first published in
1969.
With a mainline that originated in the industrial port city of
Toledo, Ohio, the Ann Arbor Railroad stretched northwest in a
diagonal line across the length of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan
to reach Frankfort and adjacent Elberta, where its
tracks terminated on the shore of Lake Michigan. From its Elberta
facility, the Ann Arbor blended trains and Great Lakes carferries
to operate a unique transportation system that survived for nearly
a century. This book documents the Ann Arbor Railroad's legacy
through rare photographs and historical research, and carries the
reader on a visual journey through this influential railroad's
storied past.
Using a rare collection of archive photographs, 'past and present'
regular John Stretton describes the old M&SWJR route from
Andoversford to Marlborough, via Cirencester and Swindon,
concentrating on the achievements and developments at Blunsdon as
the S&CR strives to expand north and south towards the towns of
its title.
'Great fun. Railway travel without leaving your armchair!' Chris
Tarrant A jam-packed puzzle and trivia book about Britain's iconic
railways. The Big British Railway Puzzle Book is a must-buy gift
book for puzzle book fanatics, train and travel enthusiasts,
history buffs, and the people up and down the country who love
their heritage and their regional identity! Featuring a treasure
trove of puzzles about railways and locomotives, using maps, old
routes and tracks, original posters and all things that delight
train lovers, the book also includes mind-boggling brainteasers,
navigational tests, word games, code-crackers, anagrams,
crosswords, mathematical conundrums and more. As well as having
over 100 mind-bending puzzles, the book also contains historical
facts and figures, trivia and introductions to each section
authored by Dr Thomas Spain, a research associate at the National
Railway Museum, about the history of the British Railways. From the
National Railway Museum in York!
Trope Publishing Company's new Mobile Edition Series identifies
fine art photographers shooting in a new way, using mobile devices
as their primary tool to capture images, in a category still
defining itself. Among the millions of images posted to social
media every day, the work of these photographers stands out for its
discipline and mastery. Jess Angell - aka Miss Underground - has
been involved with Instagram nearly from its beginning. After
posting a few shots of her favorite London Underground stations,
she realized those images got much more attention than her usual
posts, and @missunderground was born. Jess's work celebrates the
Underground's beautiful and varied geometry and architecture, as
she hunts and waits to capture these normally crowded spaces empty
of people. Fall in love with these subterranean spaces as their
hidden angles and details are revealed.
By the late 1800s, the major mode of transportation for travelers
to the Southwest was by rail. In 1878, the Atchison, Topeka, and
Santa Fe Railway Company (AT&SF) became the first railroad to
enter New Mexico, and by the late 1890s it controlled more than
half of the track-miles in the Territory. The company wielded
tremendous power in New Mexico, and soon made tourism an important
facet of its financial enterprise.
"All Aboard for Santa Fe" focuses on the AT&SF's marketing
efforts to highlight Santa Fe as an ideal tourism destination. The
company marketed the healthful benefits of the area's dry desert
air, a strong selling point for eastern city-dwelling tuberculosis
sufferers. AT&SF also joined forces with the Fred Harvey
Company, owner of numerous hotels and restaurants along the rail
line, to promote Santa Fe. Together, they developed materials
emphasizing Santa Fe's Indian and Hispanic cultures, promoting
artists from the area's art colonies, and created the Indian
Detours sightseeing tours.
"All Aboard for Santa Fe" is a comprehensive study of
AT&SF's early involvement in the establishment of western
tourism and the mystique of Santa Fe.
Michigan has a rich railroad history, which began in November 1836,
when the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad initiated service between
Toledo, Ohio, and Adrian, Michigan. That first Erie and Kalamazoo
train consisted of stagecoach-like vehicles linked together and
pulled by horses. Steam locomotiveahauled trains were still eight
months in the future. As these new transportation entities grew and
prospered, they put in place more elaborate station buildings in
the communities they served. By the end of the 19th century, some
of the larger railroad stations being built in Michigan were works
of art in their own right. But whatever size and form they took,
railroad stations were uniquely styled buildings, and there was
generally no mistaking them for anything else. This volume portrays
some of Michiganas finest railroad stations during their heyday in
the second decade of the 20th century.
Although goods traffic accounted in many cases for a higher
proportion of railway companies' revenue than passengers, the
buildings associated with it have received very little attention in
comparison to their passenger counterparts. They once played as
important a role in distribution as the 'big sheds' near motorway
junctions do today. The book shows how the basic design of goods
sheds evolved early in the history of railways, and how the form of
goods sheds reflected the function they performed. Although goods
sheds largely functioned in the same way, there was considerable
scope for variety of architectural expression in their external
design. The book brings out how they varied considerably in size
from small timber huts to the massive warehouses seen in major
cities. It also looks at how many railway companies developed
standard designs for these buildings towards the end of the 19th
century and at how traditional materials such as timber, brick and
stone gave way to steel and concrete in the 20th This building type
is subject to a high level of threat with development pressure in
urban and suburban areas for both car parking and housing having
already accounted for the demise of many of these buildings.
Despite this, some 600 have been identified as still extant and the
book will, for the first time, provide a comprehensive gazetteer of
the surviving examples.
Reveals the legacy of the train as a critical site of race in the
United States Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the
United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent
symbol of American exceptionalism, ingenuity, and vastness. For
almost two centuries, the train has served as the literal and
symbolic vehicle for American national identity, manifest destiny,
and imperial ambitions. It's no surprise, then, that the train
continues to endure in depictions across literature, film, ad
music. The Racial Railroad highlights the surprisingly central role
that the railroad has played-and continues to play-in the formation
and perception of racial identity and difference in the United
States. Julia H. Lee argues that the train is frequently used as
the setting for stories of race because it operates across multiple
registers and scales of experience and meaning, both as an
invocation of and a depository for all manner of social,
historical, and political narratives. Lee demonstrates how, through
legacies of racialized labor and disenfranchisement-from the
Chinese American construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and
the depictions of Native Americans in landscape and advertising, to
the underground railroad and Jim Crow segregation-the train becomes
one of the exemplary spaces through which American cultural works
explore questions of racial subjectivity, community, and conflict.
By considering the train through various lenses, The Racial
Railroad tracks how racial formations and conflicts are constituted
in significant and contradictory ways by the spaces in which they
occur.
First published in 1985, this Atlas uses over 50 specially drawn
maps to trace the rise and fall of the railways' fortunes, and is
supported by an interesting and authoritative text. Financial and
operating statistics are clearly presented in diagrammatic form and
provide a wealth of information rarely available to the student of
railway history. Freeman and Aldcroft provide the basis for a new
understanding of the way in which the railways transformed Britain
by the scale of their engineering works, by shrinking national
space and reorganising the layouts of urban areas. Maps show the
evolution of early wagon routes into the first railway routes, the
frenetic activity of the 'Railway Mania' years, and the
consolidation of these lines into a national network. This exciting
presentation of railway development will interest the enthusiast as
well as the more general student of British transport history.
Railways have permeated Michael Carrier's life for as long as he
can remember, and before the war his father took many superb
photographs. The result is this exciting selection of rare views
frozen in time and showing many vintage locomotives and scenes that
had disappeared by the time railway photography became a more
widespread pastime in the 1950s.
Japan is steeped in legend and myth, perhaps the greatest of which
is the popular misconception that the country is simply too
expensive to visit. The truth is that flights to Japan are cheaper
than they've ever been, accommodation can be great value, while the
warm hospitality which awaits every visitor costs nothing at all.
The real secret to travelling around the country on a budget,
however, is the Japan Rail Pass. Use this comprehensive guide in
conjunction with a rail pass to get the most out of a trip to
Japan. * Practical information - planning your trip; when to go;
suggested itineraries; what to take; festivals and events. * City
guides and maps - where to stay, where to eat, what to see in 30
towns and cities; historical and cultural background. *
Kilometre-by-kilometre route guides - covering train journeys from
the coast into the mountains, from temple retreat to sprawling
metropolis and from sulphurous volcano to windswept desert; 33
route maps. * Japan Rail service schedules - Bullet trains and main
routes in this guide. * Customs, etiquette, Japanese words and
phrases - with kanji- With kanji/hiragana/katakana for all place
name text - readers can point to the text when asking Japanese
speakers for directions. * Extended Highlights - extra colour
sections make this book even more user-friendly and attractive.
What's new in this fully-updated 5th edition? * Greater coverage of
Tokyo with additional mapping following post-Olympic interest in
the capital and the country * More hot-spring resorts added
(including Kinosaki, Kinugawa and Nyuto) * More information about
areas off the beaten track including the wood-carving town of
Inami, Yanagawa where you can ride in a 'gondola' along its canals,
Tomioka Silk Mill (where silk production was first mechanised),
Okunoshima island (notorious for its WWII poison gas factory) * New
Style Trailblazer guide with twin-colour layout and restyled maps *
Expanded colour section with 'Best' lists to help plan a trip *
Kanji and katakana are now included for all place names * Fully
updated post Covid outbreak.
First published in 1985, this Atlas uses over 50 specially drawn
maps to trace the rise and fall of the railways' fortunes, and is
supported by an interesting and authoritative text. Financial and
operating statistics are clearly presented in diagrammatic form and
provide a wealth of information rarely available to the student of
railway history. Freeman and Aldcroft provide the basis for a new
understanding of the way in which the railways transformed Britain
by the scale of their engineering works, by shrinking national
space and reorganising the layouts of urban areas. Maps show the
evolution of early wagon routes into the first railway routes, the
frenetic activity of the 'Railway Mania' years, and the
consolidation of these lines into a national network. This exciting
presentation of railway development will interest the enthusiast as
well as the more general student of British transport history.
In the days when coal was king, an ambitious plan was laid for an
east-to-west cross country rail route, connecting the Manchester
Ship Canal at Warrington to a new dock near the small east coast
village of Sutton-on-Sea. Grandly titled The Lancashire, Derbyshire
and East Coast Railway, history was to show that this line would
reach neither Warrington nor Sutton-on-Sea with only the
Chesterfield to Pyewipe Junction section and a branch to Sheffield
ever being completed. Taken over by the G.C.R. in 1907, the route
was primarily a coal-carrying railway, although it did have a
passenger service that lasted until 1955. Discover the former
LD&ECR, the self-styled 'Dukeries Route' and its branches,
through the lenses of photographers from over 100 years. From the
main line between Chesterfield and Lincoln, the Beighton Branch,
the Sheffield District Railway and the Mansfield Railway, to the
motive power depots at Chesterfield, Tuxford and Langwith Junction.
This is a photographic journey bringing you the story of the
railway from the early days to its final days, including the last
coal train to use the route.
For nearly thirty years, John Haining (under the pen name
'Countryman's Steam') contributed a vast range of designs and
constructional articles to the pages of Model Engineer magazine.
These covered all types and sizes of engine:- steam traction
engines for the road and field and standing engines, and the way
they worked with ploughs, cider mills, elevators and threshing
machines. The articles were always popular with those seeking steam
experiences away from the railways, and as a result the author
built up an authoritative reputation for the extent of his
knowledge in this area. As a technical consultant to Model
Engineer, the author built up an enviable reputation for the extent
of his knowledge and the immense trouble he took to reply fully and
clearly to readers' queries and problems. This book was originally
written in 1982 to expound on some of the problems encountered by
engine owners, both in full size and in small scale. It places
particular emphasis on design and construction, and the care of
steel boilers, with formulae and data used by the top firms. A new
and enlarged edition was extended to cover more fully the design,
construction and care of steel boilers in general, with formulae
and data used by firms of repute. An extra chapter was included
covering the author's designs of three vertical boilers, the
Sentinel, the Caradoc and a 3 inch scale version.
|
You may like...
Chuff Chuff
Emma Lewis
Hardcover
R406
Discovery Miles 4 060
|