 | Biography |  |
| Biography | |
| Behind the Steam | Kestrel Railway Books | |||
| Bill Morgan and Bety Meyrick | £14.95 | 220 pages | Hardback | 2003 |
| A very welcome reprint of a terrific story, which happens to be the very first "railway reminiscence" type book that I ever read. This new edition includes more photographic content than the original and tells the story of one man's life on the railway at Neyland. (A perfect complement to this publishers' photographic book on the same subject). As much social history as railway history, the details of this individual's life and those around him illuminate the story and place of the railway in a way which few books have ever done before or since. | ||||
| Didcot Engineman | Wild Swan | |||
| Bernard Barlow | £21.95 | 264 pages | Hardback | 1994 |
| Beautifully assembled and presented, as you would expect, but more importantly a very well written and intelligent account of one man's career on the footplate, based mostly at Didcot, as the title suggests. The photographs accompanying the text are of a very high quality, and are very relevant to the narrative, astonishingly so in several cases. Spanning the War years, with all its attendant upset and disruption, Bernard's amazingly detailed recollections provide us with a fascinating insight into a lost way of life. | ||||
| Douglas Earle Marsh His Life and Times | Oakwood | |||
| Klaus Marx | £12.95 | 160 pages | Softback | 2005 |
| An intriguing biography of the man who was appointed CME of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1903. Best remembered in locomotive terms for his "Atlantics", this book reveals a railway career that was fraught with difficulty towards its end. Poor labour relations and rumours about misappropriation of company property dogged Marsh and in 1910 he retired early on the grounds of ill health. He subsequently worked for the Rio Tinto company and eventually settled in Bath, passing away in 1933. Coincidentaly I recently met his Grandson at a friend's 60th birthday party, a surprisingly close relation to events of so many years ago. | ||||
| The Drummond Brothers A Scottish Duo | Oakwood | |||
| J.E. Chacksfield | £12.95 | 168 pages | Softback | 2005 |
| The story of the professional careers of two uncompromising brothers, Dugald and Peter, whose railway careers culminated in positions of CME and locomotive superintendant of the LSWR and G&SWR respectively. By all accounts Dugald was the dominant of the two, with a better record of successful designing and management - he oversaw the move of the locomotive works from Nine Elms to a "green field" site at Eastleigh for example, but the younger brother also made his mark. The story reveals a strange aversion to superheating and the perpetuation of some superfluous design complications to the end, which in the case of Dugald was somewhat self imposed and bizarre - not a man to take advice! | ||||
| Hillhouse Immortals | Oakwood | |||
| Neil Fraser | £8.95 | 112 pages | Softback | 1999 |
| Not a history of some obscure football club, as I at first thought, but rather an account of an L&NWR engine shed near Huddersfield, and the men who worked it. Coverage is not just BR, but extends back into pre-grouping days, as do the photographs, all of which makes for an interesting book. | ||||
| The Light Railway King of The North | R&CHS | |||
| A.L. Barnett | £11.95 | 112 pages | Softback | 1992 |
| The story of one Sebastian Meyer and the dozen or so idiosyncratic lines which he promoted. A pillar of the church, he was considered too honest and humane for business but some of his railways were nonetheless quite successful. A nice combination of biography and line histories, well illustrated and with location maps. | ||||
| Sir William Stanier: A New Biography | Oakwood | |||
| J. E. Chacksfield | £11.95 | 168 pages | Softback | 2001 |
| An insight into the man who took Swindon ideas to the LMS and built a whole new family of locomotive types. Stanier's products served the LMS and its successor well, his ubiquitous locomotives outlasting and outnumbering all other types in the dying days of steam. This book draws on fresh resources and gives a very complete picture of both the personal and public life of a great engineer. | ||||
| Steam Days in Dorset | Kingfisher | |||
| Michael Webb | £12.95 | 88 pages | Softback | 2002 |
| An engaging and personal story of a life on the railway in Dorset. Michael's railway career started as a wagon checker at Wimborne in 1942 and ended at privatisation as a guard, having spent many years as a signalman in between. In this book he recounts his experiences with candour and in his own style, highlighting the human side of railway operation but also including much of railway operating detail. The photographs, which are excellent, are all relevant and detail much of the railway around Bournemouth although they sometimes seem a bit peripheral to the story. | ||||