General Railway Books

Stephen Leyland    [Publisher:  Crecy  2018]    Hardback    256 pages

A great book, how four friends from Bolton got the most out of the shrinking BR Steam scene in the last year of its operation. Laid out chronologically, this is no mere photographic album, but a fascinating biographical account of involvement in and passion for the doomed steam railway. The photographs are excellent, including a good number of colour shots, and the text contains a wealth of fascinating detail from the period.

C.R. Potts    [Publisher:  Oakwood  1996]    Softback    136 pages

This book describes how the management attempted to run a train service during the General Strike of 1926. Based upon a superintendant's log, a day by day account of how untrained volunteers worked alongside retired railwaymen. The author adopts a neutral stance, and goes on to examine the evidence for victimisation of srikers after the event.

Richard Faulkener and Chris Austin    [Publisher:  Crecy  2012]    Softback    144 pages

A welcome paperback reprint of an interesting account of the various pressures and external economic and political influences that have shaped the railway network since the Second World War. The two authors are eminently well placed to pass comment and even judgement, and the book is well produced and includes many interesting and relevant illustrations, including maps of potentially smaller networks.

Edited by David St John Thomas    [Publisher:  R&CHS  2015]    Hardback    232 pages

As co editor David Joy notes in his introduction, this was the very last book that David St John Thomas was involved in before his passing in August 2014. It is a collection of themed writings describing the changes that the railways wrought from a wide range of perspectives, economic and social and all written recently and therefore including recent changes.

Kevin Derrick    [Publisher:  Strathwood  2014]    Hardback    160 pages

A large format all colour album of steam locomotives, thunderingly impressive three quarter shots predominate with a few more "Giffordesque" images, all very well produced.

Denis Dunstone    [Publisher:  Ian Allan  2007]    Hardback    192 pages

I somehow missed this book when it came out, an intelligent and readable account of the origins and development of the extraordinary British passion for railways. Part record and part celebration, this is a personal view and is much the better for being so in my opinion. Well produced and illustrated, it contains a lot of surprisingly interesting material given the "modernity" of much of its subject matter and the whole is a very good record of the very tangible results of this passion up until the present day.

Richard Beeching    [Publisher:  Harper Collins  2013]    Hardback    170 pages

A facsimile reprint of the dreaded Beeching Report which heralded the massive closures and cut backs that pretty much put paid to the beloved British branch line. I don't think I agree with all of the cuts, but something had to be done and if it weren't for the appointment of Richard Beeching I suspect that here would have been another name that would have become equally if not more reviled. Anyone for Serpell? Fascinating reading whatever one's view, the report contained some positive points as well and it is interesting to read this in the light of what has happened subsequently. I wonder whether he would have approved of privatisation and the way it was carried out? Now if only we had a name that could be pinned to that calamity....

Andrew Martin    [Publisher:  Profile Books  2018]    Softback    248 pages

I really enjoyed reading this book, apart from the author's interesting personal introduction to the subject through his late Father, it is a fascinating and informative guide to a diminishing and romantic part of railway travel. Based upon actual journeys made very recently, the book is also a nicely written record of our time and some of the events that have touched Europe. Despite the changes wrought by first air travel and more recently the high speed rail network, not all is doom and gloom, although the area in which there is growth in Night Trains of quality is coming from a surprising place...

Michael Williams    [Publisher:  Arrow Books  2012]    Softback    216 pages

Quite well written by all accounts, an entertaining and pretty well informed account of travel for the sake of it on Britain's current railway network.