App Store

Google Play

CO -Device Banner Block 894x1036

Descubre un mundo infinito de historias

Escucha y lee

Tim Hillier-Graves

Although closed to traffic in 1966, with most of its infrastructure swiftly destroyed by British Railways, this unique railway line still lives in the minds of many, some too young to remember it in its heyday. For more then a hundred years it courted disaster and could on a number of occasions have succumbed to overpowering financial pressures, but it survived with the help of partnerships with larger, more secure companies, namely the Midland Railway and the London & South Western Railway. Later on, after the grouping in 1923, the line came under the control of the L M S and the Southern Railway. It was unfortunate that the line suffered in later years, from inter regional rivalry between the Western and Southern Regions of British Railways, which led to its eventual closure. The variety of companies involved in its running meant that during its lifetime the small pool of locomotives needed to service the line was supplemented by the best each partner could offer. So from the beginning to the end there were a myriad number of types of locomotive running over the Mendips providing a lively variety of motive power. This heavily illustrated book traces this unique and fascinating history and brings to life this singular, much missed and loved railway.

Pen & Sword Transport

Locomotive Portfolios

Locomotives of the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway: A Definitive Survey, 1854–1966

Graeme Gleaves

The north east of England was the cradle of Britain's railways in the 19th Century. It was here George and Robert Stephenson would shape the steam locomotive. Then in the early 20th Century a second transport revolution took place around Newcastle when the suburban lines from the city to the coast were electrified in response to competition from the electric trams. What was created became the blueprint for modern day commuting. This book tells the story behind the creation of that network, the trains that served it. The narrative goes through the success and expansion years and ultimately the troubles that led to its demise. Our story comes full circle with the creation of the Tyne & Wear Metro, a ground breaking transport system that, like the electrified lines nearly 80 years earlier, set a new standard for suburban rail that would be the inspiration for schemes in many other parts of the country.

North Eastern Electric Stock, 1904–2020: Its Design and Development

Anthony P. Sayer

This informative, illustrated guide to the British Railways locomotive series covers its full production lifespan, from 1962–1965.

 In the early 1960s, the Bo-Bo diesel-electric locomotive known as The Clayton was conceived as the new standard for British Railways, superseding other Type 1 classes. While the early classes suffered from poor driver visibility, the Claytons were highly successful and popular with operating crews. However, the largely untested high-speed, flat Paxman engines proved to be highly problematic. As a result, the Claytons were eventually withdrawn from BR service by December 1971.

 Anthony Sayer draws on considerable amounts of archive material to tell the full story of these ‘Standard Type 1’ locomotives and the issues surrounding their rise and fall. Further sources provide insights into the effort and money expended on the Claytons in a desperate attempt to improve their reliability. Supported by over 280 photographs and diagrams, dramatic new insights into this troubled class have been assembled for both historians and modelers alike.

The Clayton Type 1: Bo-Bo Diesel-Electric Locomotives—British Railways Class 17: Development, Design and Demise

David Maidment

L N E R 4-6-0 Tender Mixed Traffic Locomotives covers the design, construction, operation and performance of all 4-6-0 locomotives that ran on the London & North Eastern Railway between 1923 and 1947 and the LNER designed engines that ran on BR’s Eastern Region until the end of BR steam in 1968. This includes the former Great Central 4-6-0s of classes B1 – B9 (the B1 and B2 later reclassified B18 & B19); the North Eastern Railway B13 – B16s; the Great Eastern B12s; and the LNER B17s, the Thompson B1s and rebuilds (B2 and B3/3). The book has over 60,000 words and 350 black & white and color photographs, many previously unpublished from the archives of the Manchester Locomotive Society at Stockport. It will be of particular interest to railway modelers and enthusiasts of locomotive running and performance as well as those seeking more general locomotive history. The book is designed and written in the same style as David Maidment’s previous Locomotive Portfolio books on engines of the Great Western and Southern Railways, and includes where possible his own experiences, seeing and traveling behind engines of these classes in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the B1s, B12s and B17 ‘Sandringhams’.

L N E R 4-6-0 Locomotives: Their Design, Operation & Performance

A detailed look at the nineteenth-century steam locomotive engineer and the ups and downs of his career, with numerous photos throughout.

Born in Scotland in 1840, Dugald Drummond had a long career in locomotive and railway engineering, including prominent positions on the Highland; London Brighton & South Coast Railway, North British, and Caledonian Railways, before arriving on the London & South Western Railway in the mid-1890s. There he replaced his mild-mannered and better-liked predecessor, William Adams.

His locomotives were a mix: His 4-4-0 tender and 0-4-4 tank classes were very good, but his 4-6-0 tender locomotives proved a disappointment, with the exception of the T14 class, which lasted in service until 1951. Many of his 4-4-0 tender and 0-4-4 tank locomotives, the T9 and M7 classes, lasted until the early 1960s on British Railways. 

As a result of his stubborn nature, Drummond died in 1912 after an accident that scalded his feet, having refused to get proper treatment. But much of his work lived on for decades, and examples are preserved today in the National Collection and on the Swanage Railway.

L & S W R Drummond Passenger & Mixed Traffic Locomotive Classes: A Survey & Overview

A pictorial history of the sixteen-member British steam locomotive class all named after famous admirals.

The Lord Nelson Class has come to be viewed as an “also ran” amongst express locomotives and is largely overlooked for that reason. It had the misfortune to be sandwiched on Southern metals between the classic and much revered King Arthurs and Schools and by Bullied’s controversial Pacifics. In such company any design might suffer by comparison. And yet when first appearing they attracted plaudits from railway professionals, including the footplate crew, and the public alike. But with only 16 being built their impact was muted and any faults in their design were magnified beyond their actual impact. In truth they deserved far better than this and were, in fact sturdy, reliable performers that served the company well on the heavy boat trains for which they were designed and across their other passenger services for 30 years and more in peace and war.

Much has been written about these locomotives, but no story is ever complete, with new information and photographs emerging to deepen our understanding of them. This book provides an in-depth view that re-examines these impressive engines using, new material, eyewitness accounts, contemporary assessments and more than 200 photographs and drawings.

Southern Railway, Lord Nelson Class 4-6-0s: Their Design & Development

An in-depth look at the British railway company’s celebrated class of steam locomotives, with more than three hundred photos.

Built by Collett in 1927 after pressure to restore the Great Western Railway’s pre-eminence in motive power and cope with increasing postwar traffic to Devon and Cornwall holiday resorts, the thirty Kings were the final development of the Churchward Stars and the 1923 Castles and remained on top-link main line duty until their final replacement by the ‘Western’ class 52 diesel hydraulics in 1962. 

This book includes an insight into the thinking of some of Collett’s senior staff at the end of the 1930s and the eventual transformation in the latter years with redraughting and double chimneys. As well as describing their design and construction, the book comprehensively covers their operation and performance, backed up by many recorded logs on all main GW/WR routes over which they were permitted. The author had close experience of the class when working at Old Oak Common between 1957 and 1962, and includes a chapter of his experiences with them, including many footplate trips (as a management trainee, he was greeted with glee by firemen who would hand him the shovel). The book also includes over 300 photographs, one hundred of them in color.

Great Western, King Class 4-6-0s: From Construction to Withdrawal

Descriptions and hundreds of photos of these tank engines that played a major role in Welsh coal mining and passenger rail.

After tackling the Great Western Railway’s pannier tanks in a previous Locomotive Portfolios volume, David Maidment seeks out descriptions and photographs of the GW 0-6-2 tank engines, the majority of which were built by the Rhymney, Taff Vale, Barry, and other Welsh railways from the last decade or so of the nineteenth century onward. The engines of eight different companies, absorbed by the GWR in 1922, are described and illustrated, as well as the way in which many were modernized and rebuilt at Swindon or Caerphilly Works in the 1920s. 

GWR Chief Mechanical Engineer Charles Collett was, however, faced with a motive power crisis in the mining valleys at the Grouping, as many of the companies had economized on essential maintenance as the GW’s takeover drew near, and he had to hurriedly design a standard 0-6-2T to complement and bolster their work as the powerful GW 2-8-0Ts were too heavy and wide for many of the Cardiff valleys. These engines, the 56XX & 66XX classes, became part of the South Wales scene between 1925 and 1964, mainly running the coal traffic between pits and docks, although they dominated Cardiff Valley passenger services until the influx of BR 3MT 2-6-2Ts and GW 41XX 2-6-2Ts in 1954 and 1955. With around 300 black & white photographs, this book takes a wide-ranging look at these locomotives.

Great Western, 0-6-2 Tank Classes: Absorbed & Swindon Designed Classes

A thorough history of the Metropolitan-Vickers locomotive, also known as “Class 28,” featuring 160 color and black & white photos.

This book provides an in-depth history of the Metropolitan-Vickers diesel-electric Type 2 locomotives, more frequently known collectively as the “Co-Bo’s” due to their unusual wheel arrangement. Twenty locomotives were constructed during the late-1950s for use on the London Midland Region of British Railways. The fleet was fraught with difficulties from the start, most notably due to problems with their Crossley engines, this necessitating the need for extensive rehabilitation work during the early-1960s. Matters barely improved and the option to completely re-engine the locomotives with English Electric units was debated at length, but a downturn in traffic levels ultimately resulted in their demise by the end of 1968 prior to any further major rebuilding work being carried out. Significant quantities of new archive and personal sighting information, supported by over 180 photographs and diagrams, have been brought together to allow dramatic new insights into this enigmatic class of locomotives, including the whole debate surrounding potential re-engining, their works histories, the extended periods in storage, together with in-depth reviews of the various detail differences and liveries.