The Illustrated Guide to the Great Western Railway - 1852 (Softback Reprint)
When George Measom wrote his Illustrated Guide to the Great Western Railway in 1852, Brunel's railway line between London and Bristol had been fully opened just eleven years. The Great Exhibition of the previous year had attracted six million visitors, many of whom had travelled to it by rail. This was the true Age of the Train. His guide is alive with an atmosphere of bustle and steam as he takes the reader on a journey over the whole network, describing in detail its towns and cities and the countryside between them. He points out the engineering marvels of the Wharncliffe Viaduct and Box Tunnel, and discusses with enthusiasm the luxury facilities that await passengers alighting at the main stations. At Swindon there is every kind of gourmet fare from Banbury cakes to a basin of turtle, to be consumed in rooms elegantly decorated in arabesque style and supported by columns. His text is embellished with fifty illustrations from original drawings which make the book as irresistible today as it was over a century ago
Softback, 64 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good/Very Good with some wear to cover
ISBN: 9780905392233
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Updated: 7 April 2025