num_pages: 296
description: Many books have been written about London s railways. Popular histories describe the promotion and development of the earliest lines, rich with anecdotes of struggles between heroic engineers and less scrupulous politicians and financiers. General histories of London and its development touch on issues of politics and finance, and mention rail projects and their impacts. While they describe what was built, they rarely explain why. They usually do not discuss the routes and technology choices that were considered, why a specific solution was adopted, and if it was, in retrospect, the right choice. These are the questions this book will address. This book draws on public and private documents, archives, recollections and recent interviews with more than 50 people who were involved in one way or another in the development of modern London s railways. The time period covered is, more or less, from the election of the Thatcher government and the resurgence of London as a World City, through to the present day. The author worked on most of the rail projects in this period, and had contact with most of the key decision-makers.
language: English
title: The Railway Metropolis: How planners, politicians and developers shaped modern London
publisher: ICE Publishing