Colin Maggs: 21 books

What are the wrong kinds of leaves on the track? At which station could you buy your ticket from a booth in a tree? How do smooth wheels grip smooth rails? Why don’t locomotive boilers explode? What is a slip coach? How can a railway wagon be moved without a locomotive? Colin Maggs is one of Britain’s...

Most people are under a misapprehension: the Rocket was not the first steam engine. Quite a few were built before it, but Stephenson’s engine was the first successful steam locomotive. Colin Maggs tells the story of the steam engine, from pre-Rocket days, to British Railways building the Evening...

Thousands of commuters south of the Thames use the railway daily, but how many know the fascinating history of the Southern Railway, created in 1923 from four smaller companies? Colin Maggs, one of the country’s foremost railway historians, tells the story of the London & South Western Railway,...

In his time Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the world's greatest engineer. His list of achievements is truly breathtaking: the Thames Tunnel, the first underwater tunnel in the world; the SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven ship; the Clifton Suspension Bridge, then the longest span of any bridge...

The story of the most iconic railway company of the great age of steam. The initials ‘GWR’ conjure an evocative picture of a Brunswick green locomotive hauling tea-and-cream-coloured coaches through a verdant West Country landscape. However, the GWR was not just engines and trains. In this comprehensive...

Sorely neglected by railway authors, the line between Bristol and Taunton was part of the Bristol & Exeter Railway. A fascinating line, it was built to serve a moribund coalfield and a grand harbour scheme which proved a dismal failure. The line had many interesting features: two short dock branches,...

It was a railway just waiting to be made. The capital, London, was in the east; Bristol, second city in the land, 110 miles to the west or a sea journey of 672 miles. By the late 1820s, technology had improved to a state where the very latest form of transport, a steam railway, could make a far superior...

The branch lines of Dorset, shared almost equally between the GWR and LSWR, varied from lightly built, rural railways carrying a low volume of traffic, to the Swanage branch, which at times carried main line express locomotives. Fortunately this line has been preserved and can still be enjoyed today....

The branch lines of Devon were particularly numerous and this second volume on the county covers Plymouth, west and north Devon. They vary from the Turnchapel and Yealmpton commuter lines, to the Exeter and Barnstaple branch, which for many years of its life was a main line, becoming a branch line...

The branch lines of Warwickshire had unusually interesting and evocative station names, from the pleasant and graceful Henley-in-Arden and Salford Priors to Maxstoke, which suggests a particularly efficient locomotive fireman. The branch lines showed a great diversity of railway activity, from a horseworked...

The branch lines of Worcestershire are especially interesting because of their variety, ranging from parts of the Severn Valley Railway, one of the country's largest preserved main lines, to former main lines, right down to lines which have always been branches. Many are now closed, yet several are...

The branch lines of Devon were particularly numerous and this volume covers those in Exeter and the south, central and eastern parts of the county. They were also tremendously varied, ranging from the Exmouth branch - the nearest the West Country comes to a suburban-type commuter line - and the Paignton...

Although diesel traction had been introduced to the county of Somerset as early as 1958 it was not until 1966, and the closure of the Somerset and Dorset Railway, that steam finally disappeared from the county. Here Colin Maggs has brought together a superb collection of photographs which retell the...

The Branch Lines of Buckinghamshire gives the reader a marvellous wide-ranging view of over 100 years of rail travel in this area of Britain during an era of rapid change. The county's branch lines show a remarkable diversity - they include the Great Western Railway, the Great Central Railway, the...