A fascinating but much overlooked era for the modern traction enthusiast is the changeover era from the old British Railways green and maroon to the corporate image Rail Blue of the new British Rail which stretched from the mid 1960s to the very early 1980s. The attention of enthusiasts and rail publications of the era was focussed on the dying of the steam age and much of interest to the generations of rail fans who grew up with modern traction has lain undiscovered since. This book aims to portray the many varied livery styles of the times worn by the locomotive, units and coaching stock of BR. It illustrates every major change of the green to blue period, including many little known and surprising combinations, and aims to answer many questions that have puzzled enthusiasts since.

Nothing is more evocative of the golden age of travel than the railway poster. Speed to the West shows some of the best railway posters used to promote the romance of holiday travel to the West Country, a region formed by Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. There are stunning and iconic landscapes, immediately recognizable, painted in wonderful colors that bring together the excitement, spectacle and nostalgia of the golden age of train travel. The general history of holiday express train development is covered including a detailed history of the Atlantic Coast Express and Cornish Riviera Express together with other named trains that served the West Country. The result is a visually stunning collection of posters. It is a journey of nostalgia, displaying the best of British railway advertising of the past and present.

This album of 160 colour photographs was taken in the Southern Region of B.R., which was formerly the lines constituting the Southern Railway. Bill Reed took the pictures between 1958 and 1967 during a number of visits to stations, sheds and areas offering attractive vantage points of locomotives. From Greater London in the north, at sheds and stations including Bricklayers Arms, Feltham and Victoria, to Brighton, Southampton and Bournemouth on the south coast. Dover and Folkestone in the south east were visited as well as Exeter, Yeovil and Wadebridge on the south west. The Isle of Wight is also included as the area was incorporated into the S.R. upon Grouping and later the Southern Region of B.R. This book contains a selection of photographs taken on numerous branch lines around the region and these are particularly evocative of the final years of steam under B.R. operation. From a modern perspective they also give an indication why there was such an eagerness on the part of B.R. for their closure. Many of the lines utilized locomotives that had been in service for a number of years and were perhaps coming to the end of their life span.

A guide detailing what you can see on the train journey between Shrewsbury and Swansea, with information on the railway of today and yesteryear and brief introductions to some of the towns and attractions to be found along the line.

This book, to published in two parts, is dedicated to the memories of all those people who once worked for the Great Western Railway in South Wales, at Pontypool Road loco depot, the Eastern Valley and the Vale of Neath railway, as well as to those people who worked in the industries once served by the railway in those locations. In 2016, the UK coal mining industry is extinct, and the future of the steel industry is in doubt. This book serves as a reminder to future generations as to what a fantastic place the South Wales valleys once were for heavy industry and transport infrastructure, and also as a tribute to the pioneering 19th century railway builders. Local railway enthusiast Phil Williams, is a contract structural engineer in the aerospace industry. His father's uncle, Harry Miles, was a Swindon trained locomotive fitter at Pontypool Road in the 1930s. His family have interesting links to the mining industry. His great grandfather was Thomas Williams, the Colliery Engineer at Tirpentwys Colliery from before 1902 up to 1912; and then at Crumlin Valley Colliery Hafodrynys and the Glyn Pits, from 1915 until he died in 1925 aged 76.His father's great grandfather, Joseph Harper, was one of the 1890 Llanerch Colliery disaster rescue team; he worked at the British Top Pits. His father's uncle, Williams Harper was the foreman of the wagon shop at the Big Arch Talywain.

Great Western Railway Stars, Castles and Kings examines the history and workings of these legendary classes of passenger steam locomotives, the first of which, the North Star, was built in 1906. Richly illustrated with over 200 photographs, the book includes illustrated explanations of how Great Western Railway steam engines work; details of the engines' work on named expresses and in ordinary service; overview of the survivors, heritage organizations and their futures; technical specifications and timelines of each class and finally, GWR and British Rail Motive Power Depot codes and train head codes.

All the vehicles of the BR era to the mid-1990s are described here, from the humble and ubiquitous four-wheelers to the rarer multi-axle monsters, the text supported by many photographs and almost 150 dimensioned drawings and diagrams. The book also examines and explains the principles of loading and securing, and how those principles were applied to a huge range of traffic.

Mind the gap and jump aboard this fascinating history of the world's oldest and greatest underground railway. On seven guided journeys, travel through time and observe at first hand the influence of great Underground architects, such as Charles Holden and Sir Norman Foster, and how the stations have changed - but also how many things have stayed the same.

The author writes: `My hobby has been model railways for many years, since I was given a Tri-ang Princess Elizabeth train set for Christmas as an eight-year-old schoolboy. Over the years I have gained much modelling knowledge from practical experience, and belonging to model railway clubs, quite apart from the wealth of knowledge gained from working on the `real thing' from a young post-school teenager through to my retirement. My first published book, The Newcomer's Guide to Model Railways (ISBN 98-1-85794-329-0) has I am told proved to be very popular and has given many readers a great helping hand in their hobby. So it has been deemed necessary that I should produce a second book, which would enhance the first without covering the same ground too much. While in these pages I write about generic items and often reference the real thing, there are many regional variations, and these cannot be taken into account within the confines of this book. Therefore I would recommend that, before starting any regional or era-based project, you undertake a good deal of research to gain the correct facts. Internet searches, books and perhaps visits to preserved railways or to the national network will usually reveal plenty of detail. If you are starting out in the hobby or returning to it after several years of absence and have not obtained a copy of The Newcomer's Guide to Model Railways, I suggest it might be an advantage to obtain one. I hope you enjoy the items you are about to read and hopefully they will help and possibly nudge you into producing a great model railway layout. Remember - think safely, then act.

Prior to the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, Britain's rail network was operated almost exclusively by four private companies. The 'Big Four' as they were called - the Great Western, the Southern, the London Midland & Scottish and the London & North Eastern - were not only nationalised in 1948, but consolidated into one large concern: British Railways. Each of the Big Four had built up its own system of working in its own geographic area with its own rolling stock, staff and livery. Thus, BR inherited a diverse mix, not only of physical plant, but of traditions and loyalties developed over generations. Additionally, management had to grapple with many and varied constraints in its desire to improve efficiency and create a nationally recognisable system. Also, cash was in short supply and much of the existing equipment was old, run down and in urgent need of attention. Further, all the major railway companies had a large number of restrictions as to which engines and stock could go where, even on their own system. Axle loading was often the deciding consideration and this governed which engine types could run on specific lines over which bridges and at what speed. For example, LNER Pacifics were banned entirely from East Anglia. Also, loading gauges differed on the national infrastructure. All these considerations impinged on BR's desire to introduce a modern range of steam engines of its own, so that these would have the widest route availability. This, by and large, they successfully achieved, though in later years even the new BR diesels had more restrictions placed upon them than was originally envisaged. The Unusual and the Unexpected on British Railways: A Chronology of Unlikely Events 1948-1968 is an assiduous and personal trawl on how BR overcome such engineering incompatibilities and bureaucratic confusion on a national scale. This engaging tribute is a historical and rail engineering document, which despite plans and intentions to unite the country with a single operating network, shows how daunting such a restructuring was.

Collins Big Cat supports every primary child on their reading journey from phonics to fluency. Top authors and illustrators have created fiction and non-fiction books that children love to read. Book banded for guided and independent reading, there are reading notes in the back, comprehensive teaching and assessment support and ebooks available. When Shinoy downloads the Chaos Crew app on his phone, a glitch in the system gives him the power to summon his TV heroes into his world. With the team on board, Shinoy can figure out what dastardly plans S.N.A.I.R. has come up with, and save the day. Location: An out-of-control train! Operative: Merit, at the mercy of dodgy phone reception Mission: Stop the train from entering the Forbidden Zone! This exciting title is part of the Shinoy and the Chaos Crew series by Chris Callaghan. Lime/Band 11 books have longer sentence structures and a greater use of literary language. Ideas for reading in the back of the book provide practical support and stimulating activities.

This groundbreaking book, written by one of the foremost blues historians in the UK, is based on over 30 years' research, exploration and absolute passion for early blues music. It is the first ever comprehensive study of the enormous impact of the railroads on 19th and early 20th Century African American society and the many and varied references to this new phenomenon in early blues lyrics. The book is comprehensively annotated, and also includes a Discography at the end of each chapter.

The pictures in this book were chosen from the many hundreds of 35mm colour slides Bill Reed took on and off the route stretching from London to Aberdeen. Station scenes, views on works and in sheds are featured. They roughly cover a period from 1951 to 1967 and depict the last gasp of steam before the introduction of diesels. As if on some imaginary journey, the book begins at King's Cross station wanders over to Liverpool Street steps into Great Eastern country then meanders north to finish at Aberdeen. It is noticeable that Bill has depicted marvellously the post WWII atmosphere on the railways when steam was on its last legs; the vast majority of the locomotives are in a very grimy condition and a number are seen on the scrap line. There is also evidence of how complicated and labour intensive it was to run a steam engine the vast coal hoppers and water tanks are examples to this submission. Looking back now at the 1950s and 1960s, Bill says he would have taken many more pictures of steam locomotives. But that is no matter, he has taken enough to give us more than a hint of what it was like in those last days.

This book covers the design, construction, operation and performance of Sir William Stanier's masterpiece, the Princess Coronation pacific locomotives, better known as the Duchesses'. Included are pen portraits of the LMS engineers, a chapter on the express locomotives of the early LMS period that preceded their introduction and the internal rivalries and politics that Stanier was brought in to resolve. Chapters and photographs cover the streamline era, the war years and aftermath, the early years of nationalisation including the 1948 locomotive exchanges and the recovery of performance in the mid-1950s. The author includes some of his own experiences and photographs. The book includes 200 photographs including a few in colour from the LMS era, and an appendix with weight diagrams, and statistics of the locomotive construction and withdrawal, names, liveries, allocations and mileages.

The 1970s was a unique period for Britain's railways. Steam had not long been replaced by diesel traction, the West Coast Main Line electrification was well underway with new and more powerful locomotives, and the colourful 'rail blue' livery projected an image of a new and altogether cleaner railway - there was plenty to be optimistic about. It was also a good time for the railway photographer - much of the railway infrastructure and complex track layouts of the steam era remained intact, freight traffic was plentiful and invariably passed through marshalling yards for sorting, and there were plenty of locomotive classes of various shapes and sizes, often regionally based, to pique the interest. As well as this, though, the seeds were being sown for an altogether different railway - one where locomotive standardisation was being pursued as a means of lowering fleet maintenance costs, where the freight focus was a migration to block trains travelling from supplier directly to customer, avoiding the inevitable delay and expense of the marshalling yards, and one where track layouts were being simplified and streamlined to increase speed and reduce permanent way maintenance. The photographs in this book capture a flavour of the railways during this fascinating transition period.

Railway disasters are almost always the result of human fallibility--a single mistake by an engine-driver, guard, or signalman, or some lack of communication between them--and it is in the short distance between the trivial error and its terrible consequence that the drama of the railway accident lies. First published in 1955, and the result of Rolt's careful investigation and study of the verbatim reports and findings by H. M. Inspectorate of Railways, this book was the first work to record the history of railway disasters, and it remains the classic account. It covers every major accident on British railways between 1840 and 1957 which resulted in a change in railway working practice, and reveals the evolution of safety devices and methods which came to make the British railway carriage one of the safest modes of transport in the world.

Enriched with almost 700 illustrations, this book has long been the definitive study of the American cable car, a widely touted form of urban transportation that operated in 29 cities across the United States. This once-promising technology proved inefficient, however, and cable cars were soon replaced by electric trolley cars. Today, they are only to be found as a tourist attraction traversing the steep hills of San Francisco.

Just over eighty years ago on the East Coast main line, the streamlined A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard reached a top speed of 126mph - a world record for steam locomotives that still stands. Since then, millions have seen this famous locomotive, resplendent in her blue livery, on display at the National Railway Museum in York. Here, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record was broken: from the nineteenth-century London-Scotland speed race and, surprisingly, traces Mallard's futuristic design back to the Bugatti car and the influence of Germany's nascent Third Reich, which propelled the train into an instrument of national prestige. He also celebrates Mallard's designer, Sir Nigel Gresley, one of Britain's most gifted engineers. Mallard is a wonderful tribute to one of British technology's finest hours.

The North British Railway's West Highland Line, stretching from the banks of the Firth of Clyde to Fort William, opened in 1894, and was subsequently extended to the fishing port of Mallaig on the Atlantic coast in 1901. It is this latter part of the `Iron Road to the Isles' that forms the major part of this book, hailed as one of the most scenic railway routes in the British Isles. Steam trains returned to the Mallaig line in 1984, eventually becoming the celebrated `Jacobite' service. Now an integral and indispensible part of the Scottish tourist scene, the trains run from Easter to Christmas and the New Year, twice daily during the peak season. In this superbly illustrated portrait of the line, 35 of the UK's top railway photographers have contributed pictures to create a quite stunning pictorial record. The great variety of photographic styles, using the route's many glorious vantage points, provides a mesmerising mix of unforgettable images, not just of the steam trains themselves but also the majestic Scottish landscape through which they run.