A ride on a steam train is a popular family outing. More than 100 heritage railways cater for that demand, capturing the spirit of nostalgia while preserving the engines and equipment of past days of rail travel. Their interests even extend to the modern era of 1960s-70s diesels. Those heritage railways themselves have a long pedigree, back to 1951, when a group of enthusiasts saved the Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales from closure. They ran this railway as volunteers, out of their love of the little trains and a desire to keep it going. Their example was followed by many more preservation societies who preserved and restored branch lines, country lines and industrial lines for our enjoyment now. Six decades have passed, and we are now beginning to realise what an impressive history the heritage railway movement has. This book traces that history, from the humble beginnings the hopes and ambitions of the pioneers on the different railway projects. There were times of failure and frustration, as some fell by the wayside, but others have made it through times of adversity to become the major heritage businesses of today.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway is one of the great narrow gauge railways of North Wales, with thousands of visitors travelling to the summit of Mount Snowdon along the line each year. This book covers the history of this historic and interesting line from its beginnings in the 1890s through to the present day. The author Peter Johnson has been writing about narrow gauge railways for many years and has a deep knowledge of the lines in North and Mid Wales. The Snowdon Mountain Railway is an important part of the tourist industry in North Wales and plays a vital part in providing transport in this popular and much visited area. This volume looks at the narrow gauge railway's history and development, taking in the present and future development of this fascinating line's operation.

Railway Memories No.33 reveals a whole treasure chest of inspirational railway scenes throughout North West England that are no longer there to be appreciated in real life. Steam era scenes predominate but there are also vintage electric trains for which the North West has a notable place in history. The 260 black and white photos range from steam trains on the long lost branch lines of the Lancashire coalfield and the great termini of Manchester and Liverpool to steam-hauled London-Glasgow expresses fighting their way up to Shap summit in the Cumbrian fells. A few classic diesels are included but no picture is later than the British Rail era.

'Fascinating' 'Books of the Year', Financial Times 'London's twelve great rail termini are the epic survivors of the Victorian age... Wolmar brings them to life with the knowledge of an expert and the panache of a connoisseur.' Simon Jenkins 'A wonderful tour, full of vivid incident and surprising detail.' Simon Bradley London hosts twelve major railway stations, more than any other city in the world. They range from the grand and palatial, such as King's Cross and Paddington, to the modest and lesser known, such as Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street. These monuments to the age of the train are the hub of London's transport system and their development, decline and recent renewal have determined the history of the capital in many ways. Built between 1836 and 1899 by competing private train companies seeking to outdo one another, the construction of these terminuses caused tremendous upheaval and had a widespread impact on their local surroundings. What were once called 'slums' were demolished, green spaces and cemeteries were concreted over, and vast marshalling yards, engine sheds and carriage depots sprung up in their place. In a compelling and dramatic narrative, Christian Wolmar traces the development of these magnificent cathedrals of steam, provides unique insights into their history, with many entertaining anecdotes, and celebrates the recent transformation of several of these stations into wonderful blends of the old and the new.

Never before has a comprehensive history been written of the track used by railways of all gauges, tramways, and cliff railways, in Great Britain. And yet it was the development of track, every bit as much as the development of the locomotive, that has allowed our railways to provide an extraordinarily wide range of services. Without the track of today, with its laser-guided maintenance machines, the TGV and the Eurostar could not cruise smoothly at 272 feet per second, nor could 2,000-ton freight trains carry a wide range of materials, or suburban railways, over and under the ground, serve our great cities in a way that roads never could. Andrew Dow's account of the development of track, involving deep research in the papers of professional institutions as well as rare books, company records and personal accounts, paints a vivid picture of development from primitive beginnings to modernity. The book contains nearly 200 specially-commissioned drawings as well as many photographs of track in its very many forms since the appearance of the steam locomotive in 1804.Included are chapters on electrified railways, and on the development of mechanised maintenance, which revolutionised the world of the platelayer.

A history of the United States' systematic expulsion of "undesirables" and immigrants, told through the lives of the passengers who travelled from around the world, only to be locked up and forced out aboard America's first deportation trains. The United States, celebrated as a nation of immigrants and the land of the free, has developed the most extensive system of imprisonment and deportation that the world has ever known. The Deportation Express is the first history of American deportation trains: a network of prison railroad cars repurposed by the Immigration Bureau to link jails, hospitals, asylums, and workhouses across the country and allow forced removal with terrifying efficiency. With this book, historian Ethan Blue uncovers the origins of the deportation train and finds the roots of the current moment, as immigrant restriction and mass deportation once again play critical and troubling roles in contemporary politics and legislation. A century ago, deportation trains made constant circuits around the nation, gathering so-called "undesirable aliens"-migrants disdained for their poverty, political radicalism, criminal conviction, or mental illness-and conveyed them to ports for exile overseas. Previous deportation procedures had been violent, expensive, and relatively ad hoc, but the railroad industrialized the expulsion of the undesirable. Trains provided a powerful technology to divide "citizens" from "aliens" and displace people in unprecedented numbers. Drawing on the lives of migrants and the agents who expelled them, The Deportation Express is history told from aboard a deportation train. By following the lives of selected individuals caught within the deportation regime, this book dramatically reveals how the forces of state exclusion accompanied epic immigration in early twentieth-century America. These are the stories of people who traveled from around the globe, only to be locked up and cast out, deported through systems that bound the United States together, and in turn, pulled the world apart. Their journey would be followed by millions more in the years to come.

Line by Line: Scotland is an illustrated guide to the country's railway, showcasing a collection of images captured over around twenty years. A celebration of both beautiful scenery and elegant engineering, it documents a variety of interesting rail traffic and will appeal to both local enthusiasts and those further afield. Featuring previously unpublished images that pay testament to Neil Gibson's keen eye for a great shot, this is terrific record of the railways of Scotland.

CSX Transportation Railroad Heritage is a photographic essay of this major railroad that was formed in 1980 by a merger of the Seaboard Coast Line with the Chessie System, providing a history that goes back to its beginning with the opening in 1830 of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was the first common carrier railroad in the United States. An early predecessor railroad was the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway which introduced the figure of a sleeping kitten Chessie in 1933 that became a well-recognized advertisement for passenger service and later for freight service. Each of the railroads that were merged contributed to CSX reaching important population, energy, and manufacturing markets. The CSX Pride in Service program resulted in three special painted locomotives (shown in this book) honoring the nation's veterans, active military personnel, and first responders.

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.

The seminal and pioneering London Underground is more than a mass transportation network - it is a style icon, its history involving some of the most important architects and artists of their time. Exploring Frank Pick's vision through the development of Metroland to Holden's innovative designs, David Long expertly weaves the story of the Underground - its abundance of characters (some good, some not so good), design firsts and brand identity - with Jane Magarigal's atmospheric photography. From suburban expansion to Blitz bombings and Soviet adulation, this book celebrates what remains a magnificent engineering and aesthetic achievement while providing an affectionate if slightly elegiac portrait of a London which is now gone for good.

Beginning in 1936, just two years after Ron Buckley started what was to be almost half a decade working for the railways, London Midland Steam shows the changes in locomotive power taking place throughout the London Midland and Scottish Railway and its successor, the London Midland Region of British Railways. The photographs show the design work of Samuel Johnson, Henry Fowler, John Aspinall, George Hughes and William Stanier, featuring celebrated locomotives such as Fowler's three-cylinder 'Royal Scot' class and Stanier's impressive 'Princess Royal' and 'Princess Coronation' classes, as well as the 'Black Five' and 'Jubilee' classes. With previously unpublished images from Buckley's archive and expert captions from Brian Dickson, London Midland Steam is a unique look at the glory days of steam.

Student radicals and hippies - in Oklahoma? Though most scholarship about 1960s-era student activism and the counterculture focuses on the East and West Coasts, Oklahoma's college campuses did see significant activism and ""dropping out."" In Prairie Power, Sarah Eppler Janda fills a gap in the historical record by connecting the activism of Oklahoma students and the experience of hippies to a state and a national history from which they have been absent. Janda shows that participants in both student activism and retreat from conformist society sought connections to Oklahoma's past while forging new paths for themselves. She shows that Oklahoma students linked their activism with the grassroots socialist radicalism and World War I-era anti-draft protest of their grandparents' generation, citing Woody Guthrie, Oscar Ameringer, and the Wobblies as role models. Many movement organizers in Oklahoma, especially those in the University of Oklahoma's chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and the anti-war movement, fit into a larger midwestern and southwestern activist mentality of ""prairie power"": a blend of free-speech advocacy, countercultural expression, and anarchist tendencies that set them apart from most East Coast student activists. Janda also reveals the vehemence with which state officials sought to repress campus ""agitators,"" and discusses Oklahomans who chose to retreat from the mainstream rather than fight to change it. Like their student activist counterparts, Oklahoma hippies sought inspiration from older precedents, including the back-to-the-land movement and the search for authenticity, but also Christian evangelicalism and traditional gender roles. Drawing on underground newspapers and declassified FBI documents, as well as interviews the author conducted with former activists and government officials, Prairie Power will appeal to those interested in Oklahoma's history and the counterculture and political dissent in the 1960s.

The story of electric rail transportation in Schenectady mirrors the development of urban transportation throughout America in many ways, but it also has its own peculiar local characteristics. Most notably, Schenectady had some of the finest amenities for street railway passengers in the nation, including a Beaux-Arts waiting room with 45-foot-tall ceilings, the longest trolley bridge in the world, and Bullet cars capable of traveling at 90 mph. These amenities helped make Schenectady the hub of a regional interurban trolley network, with hourly service or better to the region's other urban centers. With two major factory complexes employing a significant percentage of the city's population, Schenectady also had some of the most concentrated rush hour traffic found anywhere. This book focuses on the chronology and location of the streetcar and interurban routes partially or wholly in Schenectady. It is hoped that this book can also provide the reader with a brief overview of the geographic development of the City That Lights and Hauls the World. Much of this development took place in tandem with the growth of the street railway system.

In the mid-1930s, eminent locomotive engineer Sir Nigel Gresley produced plans for the A4 Class Pacifics, which were specially built to work a new high-speed express, the ‘Silver Jubilee’. From the start, the class caused a sensation and immediately secured the admiration of the general public. Gresley’s A4s captures these worldfamous locomotives throughout their life, with over 300 excellent colour and black and white images present in this collection, which is arguably the greatest ever assembled on the class. Photographs of every locomotive in the LNER and BR periods are included. Overa dozen A4s feature in a chapter dedicated to the 1946 renumbering, which lasted only two/three years, making pictures of them particularly rare. The A4s are shown at major centres on the East Coast Main Line, such as King’s Cross station, Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley. Also, images taken during the twilight years in Scotland are included. The surviving engines are seen at several locations in the country – Aberdeen, Glasgow and Perth. A number of images are from the lineside at various points, or wayside stations and water troughs. Some classmembers have been photographed at sheds when being serviced, or under repair at workshops. Many of the famous trains worked by the A4s are presented, such as the ‘Silver Jubilee’, ‘Coronation’, ‘West Riding Limited’ and ‘Flying Scotsman’, then later the ‘Capitals Limited’, ‘Elizabethan’, ‘The Talisman’, etc. The class were often selected to head special trains and there are several examples of this in Gresley’s A4s. The pictures are accompanied by interesting and informative captions that provide details from the history of each locomotive, as well as the class.

The Class 47 diesel locomotive was a mainstay of British Rail, with 512 built in the 1960s. As such, they were a daily sight throughout the UK, working express passenger and heavy freight trains as well as more mundane local passenger and wagon-load freight all over Britain. For rail enthusiasts, 'bashing' emerged as the art of trying to ride behind as many locos as possible. Largely due to their prolific numbers, the 47s were often disliked by bashers and the 47s were often given the disparaging nickname 'Duffs', but to those who followed them, they were 'Brush', an abbreviation of Brush Type 4, which was how BR originally referred to them. However, as time passed and other classes of locomotive fell by the wayside, a far greater appreciation of them is now the norm. This book records 1982 to 1985 and many days spent trying to travel behind all 507 of the Class 47s that were still in traffic at that time. There were triumphs and disasters in the course of these travels, but you got to go the length and breadth of the country and the book contains a wide variety of colour photographs of Class 47s at work from Inverness to Penzance.