The first railway to penetrate Sussex was the Brighton Line of the LBSCR. From this beginning, lines spread out along the coast. Over the succeeding years further lines stretched across out the rest of the county, all built by the 'Brighton', which was by far the dominant railway company in the area and established a major works at Brighton. The company, however, didn't have it all its own way. In the south-west corner the LSWR penetrated as far as Midhurst, and in the east the SECR had the fastest route to Hastings. Branching off this line at Robertsbridge was the Kent & East Sussex. There were also two of Colonel Stephens' rather idiosyncratic railways in the county: The Rye & Camber Tramway, and The West Sussex Railway. The story of the growth and development of the railways of Sussex, and in some cases their demise, is told here.

1980 to 1995 was an extraordinary time for the railways of Britain, especially the freight sector. In 1980 there was a unified, monochrome railway. Freight traffic was still abundant, with marshalling yards active and many branch lines still operating. There were hundreds of collieries. In the early 1980s, Sectorisation arrived. The freight division was separated from the passenger side and further sub-divided into different freight sectors. New locomotives were introduced, and the older types started to disappear. As the eighties progressed, the freight sector was constantly changing. The mixed freight train became a thing of the past but new traffic flows developed, particularly in containers and aggregates. The coal sector steadily declined and branch lines became disused. In the early nineties three new freight companies were created in anticipation of privatisation and then finally privatisation itself arrived, with all freight traffic being taken over by an American company. It was a period of enormous change and adaptation, and the story is told here through the images of two photographers who were keen observers of the railway scene throughout the whole of this fascinating period.

England's second largest county contains a wealth of railway history. The county was dominated by two companies - the Great Central in the north and the Great Northern in the centre and south. The county was also penetrated by the Midland Railway and there were no fewer than three joint lines. In the south the Midland & Great Northern Joint passed through from west to east, while the Great Northern & Great Eastern Joint ran north to south. In the far north-west of the county was the Isle of Axholme Railway, jointly owned by the North Eastern and the Lancashire & Yorkshire. The East Coast Main Line passes through the west of the county and this stretch includes the major railway centre of Grantham and Stoke Bank, where Mallard made its record-breaking run. Other important railway junctions are Sleaford, Boston, Spalding and Lincoln. On the coast are the seaside towns of Skegness, Mablethorpe, Sutton and Cleethorpes, which in the tourist season would see the arrival by train of thousands of holidaymakers. Further north is Grimsby, which provided numerous fish trains. So important was this traffic that the Great Central had a class of engine commonly used on these trains known as 'Fish Engines'. Next comes the important port of Immingham, Britain's busiest, which sees some 240 train movements per week. On the north Lincolnshire coast is New Holland, from where the railway-owned ferry used to cross to Hull. Further west is the steel-making town of Scunthorpe, which has its own railway system and is another important customer of the railway. There were other railways too: the Immingham Electric Railway, the Alford steam tram, and the potato railways - one system of which extended to more than twenty miles. RAF Cranwell had its own branch line. There are three tourist railways, one standard gauge and two narrow gauge. Using a wealth of rare and previously unseen photographs, Patrick Bennett documents Lincolnshire's railways.

The pre-Grouping Companies were fiercely competitive and would defend any incursion by another company penetrating what they considered to be their ‘territories’. Nevertheless, at times they would cooperate. This cooperation resulted in a large number of Joint lines. These Joint lines ranged from fully independent operations, complete with their own staffs, locomotives and rolling stock, to short lengths of railway used by the Joint companies, the cost of maintenance of which was shared. There were more than seventy of these Joint lines, and all feature in this series by popular railway author Patrick Bennett. This volume focuses on those found in Scotland the North of England.

Times were tough in the thirties, and tough guys chronicled the era in newspapers, short stories, and novels in prose that was terse, hard-boiled, bleak. One such writer was a Texan named Edward Anderson.
"Rough and Rowdy Ways" is the story of Edward Anderson, primarily in what were, ironically, his golden years--the Great Depression. The laconic loner hopped freights, wrote two proletarian novels of the social underclass, looked for inspiration in a shot glass, and mixed with Hollywood celebrities while employed as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers.
When the thirties ended, the hard-times storytelling that was Anderson's genius went out of style, and his family suffered the effects of his rejection slips, unemployment, and alcoholism. Attracted to theoretical aspects of fascism, anti-Semitism, and Swedenborgianism, Anderson became an eccentric unpopular among intellectuals as well as the poor folk whose plight he had sketched too well in prose. He died in Brownsville, Texas, in 1969, leaving a legacy of shattered relationships and two whole, well-crafted novels of a distinctive literary genre and historical era

Texas has a whole remuda of writers, some native-born and Texas-raised and some immigrants to the state. They range from poets and playwrights to newspapermen and novelists. Pat Bennett has rounded up twelve of the most respected of them to discuss their work and their opinions about Texas writing and literature in general.
A. C. Greene is fascinated by characters who have a flaw they just can't overcome. Though Elmer Kelton reads widely when he can, he concentrates on specific research when working on a project. Frances Mossiker says that she struggles hard to give each person in her books a distinct voice. Leon Hale claims he doesn't mind being criticized occasionally, "Just so long as they don't get too close to the truth." These are just a few of the insights into the minds of Texas writers that these conversations provide.
Others who contribute their views are Larry McMurtry, John Graves, Max Apple, Shelby Hearon, Preston Jones, Tom Lea, William Goyen, and Larry King, but since they all talk about the work of many colleagues, the scope of the book is not limited to this particular dozen.
Readers of Texas writing as well as anyone interested in literature will value the light these interviews shed on the work of those authors they have read and will be stimulated to sample the works of those authors they have not.

Derbyshire is a county of contrasts, and the development of the railways reflect this. In Limestone Country in the west the LNW held sway with its railways from Ashbourne and Cromford to Buxton involved in the extraction of limestone. Meanwhile, in the east of the county, no fewer than four different companies fought over the lucrative business of coal carrying in the huge North Midlands Coalfield. From the historic railway town of Derby, the Midland Railway had routes south to London, west to Birmingham and north to Sheffield. In the north of the county was the MR's Hope Valley route, which included two of the longest tunnels in Britain. Further north still was the Great Central's Woodhead route carving its way through the gritstone. Altogether no fewer than six railway companies were represented in the county, including the Great Northern penetrating from the east, the North Staffordshire in the south-west and the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway with its transversal Chesterfield-Lincoln line. A complex but fascinating story, told using previously unpublished photographs, this book charts the development of the county's railways from the earliest days.

No fewer than sixteen pre-grouping companies were represented within Cumbria's borders, seven of these in Carlisle alone. To the east of the mountains are the great Anglo-Scottish lines of the London and North Western and the Midland. Venturing across the Pennines were the transversal routes of the North Eastern Railway, from Newcastle to Carlisle, and Darlington to Tebay and Penrith. The Cumbrian coast presents a completely different picture. Here the multiple competing companies were concerned principally with the transport of coal and mineral ores to serve the huge industrial complexes to the west and south. The two principal coastal lines were the Maryport and Carlisle in the north and the Furness in the west and south. In the Whitehaven/Workington hinterland there was a number of other railways, all concerned with mineral extraction and transport. Lines penetrating the interior of the Lake District were the Coniston, Lakeside and Windermere branches and the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway that crossed the Lake District from west to east. In the north were the Caledonian with its main line to Carlisle and the short-lived Solway Junction Railway, and the North British with the Waverley, Port Carlisle, and Silloth lines. The Glasgow and South Western also ran trains into Glasgow. The history, development, and in some cases closure of each of these lines is described in turn, illustrated with a selection of photographs from different periods in their history.

The railway in 1980 had not changed much since the 1960s. There were certainly no more steam locomotives, but passenger trains consisted largely of carriages hauled by locomotives, which had mostly been constructed in the 1950s or early 1960s. Secondary services were provided by various types of multiple units from the same era. Freight traffic was still buoyant and marshalling yards busy. There were numerous freight branches and sidings. Traditional signalling was still very much in evidence throughout the system, even on some main lines. In 1980, BR was still one railway. All this was about to change. Sectorisation arrived during the 1980s; many freight traffics were lost, including newspapers and parcels. Numerous freight branches and sidings went out of use. At the same time new types of motive power were introduced, replacing the former loco-hauled trains. Hundreds of traditional signal boxes closed. Finally, in 1995, privatisation arrived. Focusing here on the north of England and Scotland and utilising a wealth of photographs and maps, together with comprehensive notes, this book reflects the immense changes that took place in the railway scene between 1980 and 1995.