Steam Nostalgia: Locomotive and Railway Preservation in Great Britain
Steam operations on British Railways ended in 1968. Since the summer of 1972, British Railways has provided limited facilities for privately-owned steam locomotives to be worked over certain stretches of line but, save only on the narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway, regular services on the Nationalized system are now wholly dependent on other forms of motive power. One hundred and thirty-eight years of transport history came to an end with hundreds of steam locomotives lying in the breakers' yards years before their time and many lines of branch line abandoned. The last fifteen years have produced many highly individualistic attempts to restore and preserve distinctive aspects of the age of steam, quite apart from the development of the established railway museums. Steam Nostalgia is an exact record of their progress and achievements, set against the wealth of romance and anecdote which the steam locomotive engendered. Each of the railways, locations, museums and societies is described historically and topographically, with special attention to the locomotives now in their care. There is also an appendix of locomotives of main line origin extant in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. The result is an encyclopaedia of railway preservation and a Who's Who of surviving steam engines. The book is illustrated with one hundred and sixty fascinating photographs of steam locomotives and preserved railways, forming a panorama of railway photography over the last eighty years.
Hardback with dust jacket, 16x24cm, 270 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good with a little foxing to edges of book
ISBN: 9780710073914
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