Grime & Glory
In the second volume of his lively and informative chronicle of the Great Western Railway Adrian Vaughan continues to trace its ups and downs through the experiences of men who worked the line; from Jim Street, who began as an engine-cleaner at Paddington in 1891 at the high noon of the GWR's Victorian heyday, to the resignation of its last General Manager, Sir James Milne, at the midnight demise of the Company in midwinter 1947. At the outbreak of the war against the Kaiser's Germany, Great Western men had to be restrained from volunteering for the armed forces. Jim Honey did volunteer, however, and worked as an engine driver under shellfire in France. Others, such as Jack Kinch, stayed at home to work the munition trains and endure exhausting work schedules. The First World War was a watershed in the history of the GWR. When the Armistice came the men were in a state of shock and in no mood to return to working under the pre-war paternalism of the management. They grew restive and through the tale of Sid Tyler the reader shares the sense of dissatisfaction culminating in the General Strike of 1926. In the 1930s the Great Western provided faster expresses, air travel and diesel rail-cars to ward off the threat from road transport, though Great Western branch trains with their vintage rolling stock provoked the Heath Robinson cartoons. The Second World War saw the Great Western in action, its fleet of ships taking part in the evacuation at Dunkirk and in operations as far away as Italy. We follow the daring Captain Pitman, DSC, and his gallant crew in St Helier to the beaches of Dunkirk and sit with Driver Jack Ody, watching as Coventry is bombed. With peace came a General Election followed by nationalisation. At midnight on 31 December 1947 the honoured and evocative title GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY was replaced by the mundane designation: BRITISH RAILWAYS —WESTERN REGION. It was the end of an era.
Hardback with dust jacket, 14x22cm, 191 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Very Good
ISBN: 9780719542442
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