The Callandar & Oban Railway (1st Ed) (HB)
First Edition, 1966
This volume is complementary to John Thomas's warmly-praised, best-selling The West Highland Railway, although it is self-contained. It tells in vivid detail, with much hitherto unpublished material, the fascinating story of the building, development and working of that other major railway to Scotland's north-west coast, the Callander & Oban. Like the West Highland, the Callander & Oban was a way of life, a colourful institution, with an extremely unusual and varied history.
In its early days the Callander & Oban was at best tolerated, at worst detested by its overbearing step-parent, the famous Caledonian, one of whose blue engines is featured in the colour frontispiece specially commissioned for the book. Its own directors were gentlemen rather than railwaymen-only one out of nine turned out on opening day-and much of the story revolves round the personality of John Anderson. Engaged at a beggarly salary in 1865 and left largely to his own devices, Anderson nursed the company through its 15-year gestation period and stayed on another 27 years. He was the Compleat Railwayman. We see him peddling shares round shops in Oban, designing a door for the ladies at Luib, and surveying a subsidiary line and issuing a prospectus without the know- ledge of the directors. We see him holding forth with Benjamin Conner of the Caledonian on locomotive matters, and suggesting to their signalling engineer a unique method of protecting trains from falling boulders.
John Anderson's railway retained its independence until 1923 and much of its individuality until the 1960s. The most picturesque section of the line remains open, though the rest, including the branch lines, has been recently closed.
Hardback 200 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good - moderate fading to DJ, esp. spine. Mild tanning/foxing to pages
ISBN: 9780946537617
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