The Shelf2Life Trains & Railroads Collection provides a unique opportunity for researchers and railroad enthusiasts to easily access and explore pre-1923 titles focusing on the history, culture and experience of railroading. From the revolution of the ste

When Christopher Ross put on a hi-visibility vest and joined London Underground as a station assistant, he discovered a Plato's cave of reflection and human comedy, populated by streakers, buskers, onanists and angry commuters. A meditation on life, a philosophical enquiry into human nature and a profoundly funny dissection of urban madness. Christopher Ross, philosopher and traveller, decided to cease his journeyings and go underground, working for a year as a station assistant on Platform 6 (northbound Victoria Line) at Oxford Circus. After training school, where he is taught how not to electrocute himself and always to look a member of the public in the eye as they are assaulting you, he faces up to his new duties with a mixture of curiosity and foreboding. 'Tunnel Visions' is a delightful mixture of lived experience in the sureal world of London's Underground and the more elevated ideas, thoughts and imaginings that experience provokes. Oxford Circus station, complete with its weeping wall, its streakers, buskers, onanists and cupboard containing one employee whose ideal working day was to sleep soundly 100 feet below ground, is a Plato's Cave of reflection and human comedy. Christopher Ross, a still point in the whirling stream of the bizarre and otherworldly life below ground, has written a profoundly funny book.

Starting with a little known Indian Battle on top of the Cumbres, and moving rapidly forward in history, the story of "The Little Train That Would Not Die" creates a tale of the West seldom told today. While some of it was lived out in the 1800s, the major portion of this book centers around the heroic efforts of ordinary men accomplishing the impossible through ordinary means in the 1960s and 1970s. It is a story packed with action, adventure and passion that interweaves with the lives of General William J. Palmer, Bat Masterson, and singing star, Gene Autry. But most of all it is a passionate tale of the lives of men who dared to dream big and found success even when the deck was stacked against them. They were train buffs, steam fans, senators, family men. They were men who saw a piece of Americana slipping away and they were damned if they were going to let that happen. Like my father said, "they were the most over enthusiastic, unbusiness-like fools that ever set foot in shoe leather," but they got the job done and the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is their living monument of hope to future generations. This is their story, but it's also mine. As a 9 year old girl, I rode on the Cumbres & Toltec when it first started out. By the time I was 14 years old, I was drummed into Engine 463's "boiler maker corps" working along side my dad and three other guys, forever losing my heart to that little engine. I remember the blisters and aching muscles, the heart ache and joy. It is my hope that a piece of that has been capture on these pages and that this train will go to future generations forever being "The Little Train That Would Not Die."

In 2010 the first volume of Mike Jacob's enchanting memories of his railway childhood was published. Memories of Isle of Wight Railways combined personal reminiscences with accurate factual information. Readers are privileged to see Hampshire railways in the 1940s, the time as a child he first saw a sailor carrying bananas at Portsmouth station-without knowing what they were, a strange machine that turned out to be the Leader on a test run, and later still, visits to Eastleigh and interviews with the works manager, which revealed some interesting facets on Mr. Bulleid and his engines. The story continues with equally wonderful descriptions of visits from Kent across to Cornwall. This new title is copiously illustrated with new material, a lot of which has never previously published. Just like the first volume, this is a compelling book that once started, will be difficult to put down.

A 2-4 player card game of trains, tracks, and tricky decisions designed by the award-winning design duo Brett J. Gilbert and Matthew Dunstan. In the sleepy English countryside, life continues undisturbed as it has for centuries. It is up to you to travel to every corner of this land, bearing the promise of modernisation, accommodating the oddly specific demands of the locals, and ushering in the age of steam. In Village Rails, you will be criss-crossing the fields of England with railway lines, connecting villages together, and navigating the complex and ever-changing demands of rural communities. Connect stations and farmsteads to your local network while placing your railway signals and sidings ever so carefully. Meet the exacting standards of cantankerous locals planning strangely specific trips, and weigh their demands against your limited funding. There is much to balance in this tricky tableau-building card game of locomotives and local motives. Players: 2-4 Playing Time: 45 mins Age: 14+ Contents: 122 mini cards, 50+ tokens, 4 scoring dials

Set against a backdrop of the wonderful scenic beauty of Scotland's Highlands, this book illustrates the area's fascinating passenger and freight trains, railway infrastructure, stations and signalling over a 40-year period. Using photographs taken mainly by two railway enthusiasts who have made regular and frequent visits to the area, the reader is taken on a captivating photographic journey north from Perth to Inverness, Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick and Thurso. En route, many of the locations on the railway and the variety of locomotives and multiple units that have appeared in the area from 1979 to 2019 are shown. This volume includes over 180 historic photographs, most of which have never been published before, each accompanied by an extensive caption. Together they form a comprehensive historic record of the trains in Highland Scotland north of Perth, including some of the changes that have taken place in the railways of the area. They illustrate the growth and decline of passenger and freight services and how the infrastructure of the railways has evolved through a period of four decades to meet the needs of the modern railway era.

In series with the main 'Southern Way' volumes, this 96 page book looks at things that went wrong on the railway - sometimes unavoidable, sometimes misfortune and sometimes just sheer bad luck. Nothing too macabre either, instead derailments, clear ups, and incident-causing delays, plus of course Bulleid's that got a bit hot under the casing! This primarily pictorial volume covers the period of both Southern Region and Southern Railway days plus a few earlier occurrences. The photographer sometimes unwittingly affording a glimpse of a background scene rarely seen elsewhere.

The London Midland Region covered a huge part of England from London to the north and north west, from the Scottish borders into the south west. It served huge metropolitan cities and towns, supported heavy industry, and ran through areas of outstanding natural beauty such as the Peak District and Lake District. Modelling the Midland Region from 1948 is an essential guide to creating your own model based on the London Midland Region of the British Railways era. It covers the history of the London Midland Region; British Rail and LMS locomotives; passenger and goods rolling stock; structures and scenery unique to the region, and signalling and electrification. The authors of this book are trustees of the charity Famous Trains model railway and directors of its operating company Famous Trains Ltd.

In the immediate decades after World War II, the French National Railways (SNCF) was celebrated for its acts of wartime heroism. However, recent debates and litigation have revealed the ways the SNCF worked as an accomplice to the Third Reich and was actively complicit in the deportation of 75,000 Jews and other civilians to death camps. Sarah Federman delves into the interconnected roles-perpetrator, victim, and hero-the company took on during the harrowing years of the Holocaust. Grounded in history and case law, Last Train to Auschwitz traces the SNCF's journey toward accountability in France and the United States, culminating in a multimillion-dollar settlement paid by the French government on behalf of the railways.The poignant and informative testimonies of survivors illuminate the long-term effects of the railroad's impact on individuals, leading the company to make overdue amends. In a time when corporations are increasingly granted the same rights as people, Federman's detailed account demonstrates the obligations businesses have to atone for aiding and abetting governments in committing atrocities. This volume highlights the necessity of corporate integrity and will be essential reading for those called to engage in the difficult work of responding to past harms.

The Shelf2Life Trains & Railroads Collection provides a unique opportunity for researchers and railroad enthusiasts to easily access and explore pre-1923 titles focusing on the history, culture and experience of railroading. From the revolution of the steam engine to the thrill of early travel by rail, railroads opened up new opportunities for commerce, American westward expansion and travel. These books provide a unique view of the impact of this type of transportation on our urban and rural societies and cultures, while allowing the reader to share the experience of early railroading in a new and unique way. The Trains & Railroads Collection offers a valuable perspective on this important and fascinating aspect of modern industrialization.