A safe mode of transport today, the railways were far from vehicles of sleepy commute when they first came into service; indeed, accidents were commonplace and sometimes were a result of something far more sinister. In this fresh approach to railway history, Rosa Matheson explores the grim and grisly railway past. These horrible happenings include memorable disasters and accidents, the lack of burial grounds for London's dead, leading to the 'Necropolis Railway', the gruesome necessity of digging up the dead to accommodate the railways and how the discovery of dynamite gave rise to the 'Dynamite Wars' on the London Underground in the 1880s and 1890s. Join Rosa as she treads carefully through the fascinating gruesome history of Britain's railways.

The exciting early days of the railways were tempered with danger, as the Victorian concept of health and safety was rather different to ours. Going 'into the dark' was a frightening experience and tunneling under the ground and under water was a death-defying activity in nineteenth-century Britain - many workers and travellers paid the ultimate price. Flooding, collapses and explosions, as well as malodorous air and illness, were just some of the challenges workers faced in order to make tunnels passable. Even once the tunnels had been completed, accidents were still frequent, whether collisions, derailments or fires. In this fascinating history, Rosa Matheson explores the grim past of Britain's well-known and lesser-known railway tunnel disasters, and how their 'terror' led to a safer future.

The Great Western Railway's Swindon Works was the largest employer in the area, even during the early British Railway years. For well over a hundred years thousands of apprentices and 'trainees' passed through its doors to learn the trades of the railways. Throughout its lifetime the apprenticeship process was hard work with many constraints, particularly in the early periods when even marriage was forbidden. However, alongside the hard work of 'doing time' (a colloquial term for apprenticeship), there were undoubtedly good times as the young boys were absorbed into the 'family' of workers 'Inside' (as Swindon Works was known locally). Doing Time Inside chronicles the changes of the apprenticeship process from its earliest times during the Industrial Revolution; through the varied work of two world war periods; the changes of thinking and policy in the post-war era; the significant developments of the 1960s; and the decline of apprenticeship until the closure of the Works in 1986. Full of fascinating photographs and documents, many previously unpublished, as well as numerous engaging first-hand accounts of the different 'apprenticeships' on offer, the books presents an in-depth study of apprenticeship in the railway world.