The South Staffordshire Railway, Volume 1 (OL154A)
Volume One covering Dudley-Walsall-Lichfield-Burton (including the Black Country Branches)
At the time of the inception of the South Staffordshire Railway (SSR), rail traffic across Birmingham was seriously impeded by the restrictive nature of the route arrangements around Curzon Street and Lawley Street stations. This new railway was intended as a through route for traffic to and from southern England and south Wales to northern Englan, that would bypass this bottleneck. Its route northwards from Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway at Dudley, would provide links to the Great Western Railway at Wednesbury (then under construction) and the London & North Western Railway at Bescot and Lichfield, reaching the Midland Railway at Wichnor Junction, with running powers onwards to Burton. However, the intention was not entirely achieved. In the first place, the sprawling industrialisation of the West Midlands area that the line traversed proved to yield so much traffic, that its capacity was fully taken up in servicing these needs. Secondly, the amount of through freight traffic was only ever minimal, mostly because the early routes were soon revised to virtually eliminate the bottleneck. Through passenger traffic over the SSR never materialised. Nonetheless, this line was successful with the more modest nature of its traffic, which with the development of the Cannock Chase coalfield reached enormous proportions in the first half of the 20th century. Local passenger traffic grew to acceptable levels, but was destined to be withdrawn from the South Staffordshire Railway main line and its branches. The exception was the Walsall to Birmingham commuter service which mostly used the LNWR lines.
The promoters, owners and lessees of the line had numerous other local business interests which not only complemented the railway, but provided employment for the local populace. The individuals involved earned the respect and gratitude of the local communities, although such is the nature of mankind that this has not been entirely remembered.
The mostly local traffic drew on a number of interesting operating procedures, as well as a wide variety of locomotives from those of the original South Staffordshire Railway, through a miscellany of LNWR and MR types and onwards through the standard LMS and British Railways types, well into the modern diesel era.
Eventually the middle portion from Walsall to Anglesea Sidings (Brownhills) was closed entirely in 1984, and onwards to Lichfield City in 2001. The southern half of the route, from Dudley to Bescot was closed entirely in 1993, although its future as part of the Midland Metro system appears secure.
In this volume we look at the construction and development of the main line, as well as the small branches to Dudley Port, the Darlaston Loop, and the Princes End branch, plus those mineral lines extending eastwards.
Softback A5 format, 312 pages, 290 illustrations.
Condition: Very Good - past owner's signature IFC
ISBN: 9780853617006
Most orders are dispatched within two-three working days of receipt of cleared payment. If there is going to be a significant delay (more than 10 working days), we will contact you and, where possible, give you an estimated dispatch time.
Please be aware that advance orders will be sent as soon as the relevant book has been published.
When placing your order, please ensure that you add the correct full shipping address to your order. This includes house number, street name, zip code/post code. If parcels are returned on account of an incorrect shipping address we will contact you to seek the correct address and also ask that you pay a contribution towards posting the parcel to you a second time. Similarly, if a parcel is returned to us because the local mail service is unable to deliver it (or you do not collect it from the designated collection point), we will contact you and ask you for a contribution towards the cost of shipping to you for a second time.
The journey of a book from our shelves to the reader demands careful handling and the appropriate packaging. We recognise the need to ensure that books arrive at their destination in the same condition that they leave us. Our packaging solutions aim to accommodate books of all shapes and sizes. In a society where so much is thrown away, Rail-Books have a policy of reusing packing materials to pack your order wherever possible. Whilst this may generate a small saving in our packaging costs, the impact to the environment is a much greater saving. We also try to ensure that new packaging used by ourselves, such as boxes, book-wraps and envelopes, is made from recycled materials.
UK
All orders for UK addresses are normally sent via Royal Mail 48 Hour (the business equivalent of 2nd class mail) which is not tracked although Royal Mail do confirm delivery of parcels. Orders of £35 and over are sent post free. If you require tracking for your order, tracking & courier options are available for a small fee. The appropriate shipping option can be selected as part of the checkout process. If the service that you require is not shown, please get in touch with us and we can quote for your desired service.
Large, bulky or high value orders may be split in to multiple consignments or sent via courier. There is no additional charge for this and you will be advised at the order fulfillment stage if this happens.
Overseas
Overseas orders are charged based on weight, and postage will be automatically calculated at checkout. For a postage quotation, please add the items you want to your cart and proceed to the checkout. All orders are usually sent via Air Mail - this is not tracked. If you required your order to be tracked or sent by a different service, please contact us, preferably before checkout.
Royal Mail will only accept parcels up to 5kg in weight (2kg for Canada). If you are ordering multiple items that exceed these limits, please contact us first so that we can advise you of the appropriate shipping rate.
Due to the high volume of parcels going missing, we are no longer able to send untracked orders via third party mail handling services such as Parcel Motel. We are able to send untracked parcels to bona fide PO Box addresses, friends and family members and to work addresses.
Some countries charge import taxes and other taxes such as VAT; we suggest that in these cases, you asked for your order to be tracked so the local taxation authorities can trace your parcel.
Please note that courier services are unable to deliver to PO Box addresses. If you usually use a PO Box address, you will need to supply an alternative address if you require shipping by courier.
Our shipping rates are based on sending a 5kg/10kg parcel and will include insurance. We can often secure good rates by the use of booking agents and we will refund any excess paid by you.
Shipping to the European Union
From 1 July 2021, EU countries have imposed VAT on imports. In the UK, books are zero-rated for VAT proposes so there is no VAT to deduct from the prices quoted on our website. All of our orders are usually sent "DDU" (Delivered Duty Unpaid) using a courier service and the shipping prices quoted are on a DDU basis. However, we are now able to offer limited "DDP" (Delivered Duty Paid) services to certain EU destinations. If you would like to purchase books on a DDP basis, please contact us before making your purchase and we will give you a DDP price. (Sometimes we can secure good DDP shipping rates - if this holds true, we will advise you if we are able to pay your taxes and/or whether is any additional payment required).
Therefore all DDU shipments to EU destinations will be held by the relevant customs authority until the customer pays any VAT that is due. We understand that if no payment is received by the relevant customs authority after 30 days, the package will be either returned or destroyed. Rail-Books will not be liable for any loss resulting from the destruction or return of goods where VAT has not been paid.
We recommend that customers in the EU follow the tracking data supplied to them once we dispatch your parcel and once the parcel is showing as arriving in the destination country, make contact with either the postal or customs authorities to pay the appropriate amounts of tax/duty.
Returned Parcels
On rare occasions, parcels will be returned to us. Where this happens we will refund the customer the cost of their order less any expenses incurred by ourselves (e.g. the initial cost of sending the parcel or costs relating to damage incurred in transit). If a customer requests that a parcel be shipped again for a second time, we request the customer to place a repeat order together with shipping costs. Repeat orders to UK customers will not be eligible for free shipping.
Updated: 2 January 2025