Description

This book is a gallery of more than two hundred photographs, including a color section, featuring a selection of Great Western Railway/British Railways (Western) branch lines and similar services taken between 1900 and 1965. The emphasis is pictorial rather than factual with the aim of using photographs provided by two transport charities as well as the author, all of which are unlikely to have appeared previously in print or on the Internet. Generally, images depict working trains surrounded by recognizable infrastructure, often with station nameboards visible. Such pictures should be of particular interest to railway modelers as well as invoking nostalgia for the older generation who were pursuing their hobby around the time the pictures were taken. Most of the branch lines covered were victims of the 1960s "Beeching Axe", with closure to passengers or complete closure coming even earlier in some cases. Most of the services depicted are steam operated although a few GWR and BR diesel railcars/multiple units are included. All the scenes seem to reflect a more leisurely way of life than exists today.