Which is you favourite Railway Book.

[laurenceb]

I do like JIC Boyd's books. As for Oakwood, at the last count I have about 130 of em.

[jamie92208]

I do like JIC Boyd's books. As for Oakwood, at the last count I have about 130 of em.

They ought to come with a health warning they inspire quirky layouts, who mentioned the W & C.

 

Jamie

[ian@stenochs]

I do like JIC Boyd's books. As for Oakwood, at the last count I have about 130 of em.

You cannot have 130 favourites! Maybe just one or two

 

Ian

[NHY 581]

Adrian Vaughn's Signalman trilogy.

 

Superb.

 

Does anyone remeber a series of books, about a lad with a layout where all the figures etc were 'alive'? I had them on permenant loan from the school library!

  

 

I remember these too.....but I also don't know the titles ! These books would have been around in the late 60s/early 70s.

Matt

 

 

 

Hi Black Rat. I am glad you liked the books. Your comments on your interpretation would be of interest. Mark

 

I loved these books as a lad and would be more than happy to have a set now. I learnt a lot from them and once started, I couldn't put them down.

 

Wonderful books and very much a part of my childhood.

 

 

Are there any plans to reprint them, Mark.I'm sure a limited run would sell well.

 

 

Rob.

[NHY 581]

Other books which are very special to me;

 

The Trains We Loved. C. Hamilton Ellis. I still have copy bought for me by my late father. I will never be parted from it.

 

An English Cross Country Railway by Ivo Peters. I bought this with my birthday money for my 14th birthday.

 

Anything featuring the photographs of Norman Lockett.

 

 

Rob

[laurenceb]

You cannot have 130 favourites! Maybe just one or two

 

Ian

As a publisher they are addictive!

[Nearholmer]

Very true.

 

If we were allowed ten favourites, I would probably put the very first Oakwood book on it. It's a thin book, illustrated by Kidner's own "characterful" sketches of locos, and contains barely any information by later standards, although it must have been a goldmine at the time, but it is so obviously written from first-hand observation, and its wonderful to think that it gave rise to an entire genre.

 

Edit: I've got this wrong! The book I thought was first wasn't. It seems that the first was Catchpole's book on the L&B, in 1936, and the first of the LR Handbooks, which is what I was thinking of came in 1937.

 

K

[laurenceb]

Michael Robins & Rodger Kidner were very brave publishing a book about a small insignificant closed railway. It could have burnt them badly, instead they created a hole class of book.

[Nearholmer]

They were young.

 

K

[Eclipse247]

  

 

 

 

 

 

I loved these books as a lad and would be more than happy to have a set now. I learnt a lot from them and once started, I couldn't put them down.

 

Wonderful books and very much a part of my childhood.

 

 

Are there any plans to reprint them, Mark.I'm sure a limited run would sell well.

 

 

Rob.

Yes Rob. Ray would have enjoyed your comments. Thanks. The first three are on the Kindle and the first as a print copy too. You can order from most bookshops. Although W.H. Smith seem to be dragging their feet despite a call from me. Mark

[BoD]

Whichever one I happen to be reading at the time.

I'm easily pleased.

[Old Gringo]

Very true.

 

If we were allowed ten favourites, I would probably put the very first Oakwood book on it. It's a thin book, illustrated by Kidner's own "characterful" sketches of locos, and contains barely any information by later standards, although it must have been a goldmine at the time, but it is so obviously written from first-hand observation, and its wonderful to think that it gave rise to an entire genre.

 

Edit: I've got this wrong! The book I thought was first wasn't. It seems that the first was Catchpole's book on the L&B, in 1936, and the first of the LR Handbooks, which is what I was thinking of came in 1937.

 

K

 

I suspect that the average age of the eleven RMweb members currently following this topic is over the speed limit in general use in many U.S. States.  And therefore, it's likely that we all know the full titles of the two books suggested by Kevin in the above post

 

 

However, for those not quite of our vintage, I'm guessing that the full titles are:

 

 

"The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, 1895 - 1935", by L.T. Catchpole, Oakwood Press, Sidcup (62 pages, 48 illustrations, with maps and gradient profiles), first published in March 1936 and running to at least six printings by 1960.

 

 

followed by; "Light Railway Handbook Number 1: The Colonel Stephens Railways", by R.W. Kidner, Oakwood Press, 1936* (12 pages, 5 plates, maps and illustrations).

 

 

All the best,

 

John.

 

 

Still trying to get down to just twenty favourite railway books!

 

 

Edit. * according to "Ottley's Bibliography, LRH 1 was also 1936, with a second edition in 1937 and reprinted as a part of a composite edition of the Light Railway Handbooks in 1938.  I wonder how many of these survive in 2017?

[Geep7]

One of my favourite railway books is Ivo Peters "Railway Elegance". Whilst it's mostly BR Blue diesels, the scenery is inspiring.

[DavidR]

'Gone With Regret' , George Berhend.  Whimsical, but evocative.

[NHY 581]

Yes Rob. Ray would have enjoyed your comments. Thanks. The first three are on the Kindle and the first as a print copy too. You can order from most bookshops. Although W.H. Smith seem to be dragging their feet despite a call from me. Mark

 

Splendid news, Mark.

 

I will look to aquire these.

 

 

Thank you so very much.

 

 

Rob.

[43078shildoncountydurham]

What else for me "Power of the Hst's" by Opc

[Eclipse247]

Splendid news, Mark.

 

I will look to aquire these.

 

 

Thank you so very much.

 

 

Rob.

Hi Rob, I think you might find that you see the books in a different perspective as an adult. There are social and political perspectives including trust, teamwork, family values, vulnerability, respect, tolerance, the Beeching cuts and the voice of the small people vs the power of the large, rich people. (Just like in society). Couple this with a certain zany humour and you have different layers to the stories which may account for why these books are re-read by people as they get older and another perspective becomes more obvious or relavent. Mark

[Poggy1165]

I couldn't possibly nail it down to one. In fact I would have difficulty nailing it down to one hundred.

 

Some suggestions:

 

Tales of the Glasgow and South Western Railway, D. L. Smith.

 

2750, Legend of a Locomotive, H. C. Webster.

 

Great Central (3 vols) George Dow

 

I read all of these for the first time while I was still in short pants. The first taught me to persevere with unfamiliar dialect terms. The second introduced me to the "feel" of the 1930s and the technical side of locomotives - much of which still flies over my head. The third taught me how to read academic history with big words, an ever-so-slightly pompous style and a focus on the men in charge rather than those who did the work. Each is still a favourite to this day.

 

Among modern books, I am tempted to say anything published by Lightmoor, particularly the Turton series on PO Wagons.

[Andy Kirkham]

Great Western Branch Line Album by Ian Krause. As a boy I had it out of the library as near permanently as I was allowed. It was only last year that I got around to acquiring my own copy.

[Andy Kirkham]

I do like JIC Boyd's books. As for Oakwood, at the last count I have about 130 of em.

Yes I've been a fan of his books since boyhood. I love J.M.Lloyds caligraphic maps. I do find they vary in readability, though. The Ffestiniog book and Narrow Gauge Raiways in Mid-Wales are proper narratives, but I find, for instance, the North Caernarvonshire volumes impossible to read from cover to cover; they seem overburdened with mountains of partially organised facts.

[Andy Kirkham]

'Gone With Regret' , George Berhend.  Whimsical, but evocative.

Opening lines: "It's too bad, if you don't like this book. A passenger wrote it, not a former railway servant. The pictures are what really matter, anyway..."

[Nearholmer]

Andy

 

You are absolutely right about Boyd's later books. I think that he just ran out of steam, bit off more than he could sensibly chew, and couldn't have rganise the material. He had a rest least one, possibly more, keen volunteer assistant by that stage, who did a lot of archive-mining, but even for a team it was a gigantic task.

 

Not sure when in the sequence he wrote the Schiller and Skib one, but that is as good as the earlier ones.

 

Kevin

[Tony Davis]

Arthur Randell - "Fenland Railwayman", lots of local (to me) stuff, railway operation, people etc, and seems authentic.

[Andy Kirkham]

 

 

Edit. * according to "Ottley's Bibliography, LRH 1 was also 1936, with a second edition in 1937 and reprinted as a part of a composite edition of the Light Railway Handbooks in 1938.  I wonder how many of these survive in 2017?

 

I think the composite edition continued to be in print until at least the 1960's. I used to borrow it from the library around 1970 and I don't remember it seeming especially old.

[Fenman]

"The District Controller's View - No. 8 - The Waverley Route" gives a real feeling for the workings of the line; ...

Thank God someone else likes these Express Publishing books - I thought I was a freak. The two M&GN volumes are real favourites (and surprising in places - turns out I didn't know the M&GN as well as I'd thought).

 

My other favourites also seem unloved by anyone else:

- Biddle's magisterial "Britain's Historic Railway Buildings";

- Jack Simmons' gloriously descriptive "The Railway in Town and Country";

- Mark Casson's wonderful "The World's First Railway System", which describes the monumental waste of private money in the pursuit of monopoly riches;

- Stewart Squires' "Building a railway", 70 gloriously atmospheric photographs taken in 1890-93 showing the construction of an extension to the M&GN.

 

Paul