Railroads category: 1183 books

Do you know… • What are the most unusual things left behind by passengers on British trains? • How China is using trains to recreate the ancient Silk Road? • How many of the sixty Sherlock Holmes stories feature travel by rail? The appeal of trains travels far and...

At the beginning of the 20th century, the street railway industry was one of the largest in the nation. Once ubiquitously visible on the city streets, by mid-century the streetcar was nothing more than a distant memory. Ohio was home to several large streetcar systems, especially in Cleveland and...

Anyone who has watched in anticipation as a powerful steam engine rolled into a station, belching iconic billows of black smoke, or heard the memorable blue note sound of a steam engine whistle will revel in Charles McShane’s amazingly detailed exploration of the inner workings of the classic steam...

Recording an iconic and important decade in the history of the Southern Region, Michael Hymans offers a unique year-by-year photographic record of the fascinating changes that took place. With an accessible, easy-to-read style, Southern Region Through the 1950s acts as a wonderful introduction, as...

The first traction engines were built around the middle of the nineteenth century. Their great pulling power and ability to provide power for other equipment revolutionised road haulage and agriculture. Great makers like Burrell and Garrett from East Anglia, Taskers and Wallis & Steevens from...

The Class 47 was built between 1962 and 67 as the Brush Type 4 by both Brush Traction and British Railways Crewe works, eventually numbering 512 examples. The Class soon was to be seen working all types of trains across the network; although it was not without its problems, the most major resulting...

Mechanical signal boxes and semaphore signals are the last vestige of Victorian technology still to be found on Britain’s railways. Still surviving against all the odds in a digital era, only a few hundred ‘boxes’ remain in use out of the 10,000 originally built to control train movements across...

The LNER Class A3 Pacific locomotive No. 4472 'Flying Scotsman' is one of the world's most iconic steam engines. It was built in 1923 for the London and North Eastern Railway at Doncaster Works to a design by Nigel Gresley. Taking its name from the London to Edinburgh non-stop service on which it...

Founded by Charles Tayleur in 1830 as a factory to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows grew rapidly both in reputation and capacity. From 1832, Tayleur was partnered by the great Robert Stephenson, and over the next 138 years the...

Seventies Spotting Days Around the Southern Region is a full-colour photographic album depicting the 1970s with coverage of both diesel and electric traction from that great period of change on our railways. The captions include items of news, culture, music and personalities from the era to bring...

In the 1960s, there were still steam locomotives based at Ayr depot and a wealth of branch lines crossed the Ayrshire countryside. Although there was a wave of closures following the Beeching Report, by the 1980s it was decided that what railways were left were worth keeping and some stations such...

Packed with rare and unpublished images, Sussex Steam takes the reader on a journey around picturesque Sussex and the steam trains that used to call it home. Taking in what would have been the first route travelled, a number of secondary routes, locomotive sheds and the works in Brighton, these fascinating...

The Duchesses tells the story of the ‘Princess Coronation’ class of locomotives -the streamlined embodiments of raw, bulked-up muscle and formidable power that any enthusiast will tell you were the finest steam engines in Britain. Conceived of by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway to rival...

Travel back in time on a journey across Britain’s main-line railways on the eve of nationalisation. The views from the carriage windows are conveyed through finely detailed, hand-drawn maps, each a rich reminder of the linesides bursting with activity in an era of technical progress, glamour and...