Author Alf Henshaw brings vividly to life the smoky air of Victoria station and the complexity of the north Notts railway scene with his extensive atmospheric photographs. Today it's hard to imagine the North Nottinghamshire towns of Basford, Bulwell and Gedling handling express and local passenger trains, and major mineral flows serving the iron ore, coal and steel industries. The GNR built their main line from the Trent climbing across to the Leen Valley and developed the railway town of Netherfield. Their Colwick yards complex was vast, with capacity for 6,000 wagons and employing 600. The complete story of construction, expansion, intensive operation, contraction, closure and the scene today is presented by retired railwayman and new local author Alfred Henshaw.
Full colour covers, art paper production.
Immediately British Railways was formed in January 1948, the railway Executive instructed Robert Riddles to design a series of standard locomotive designs. The intention was to gain material savings in running and maintenance costs by adopting as standard the best practices of the four independent companies. This absorbing read opens at Grouping with an LMS locomotive fleet of poor steaming designs unsuitable for the heavy and growing traffic levels. The Board's historic decision to hire Stanier from the rival Great Western and his revolutionary work to equip the LMS with a more suitable locomotive fleet evolved around more effective raising and use of steam. The complete story is presented here from early LMS practice based on pre-grouping designs through Stanier's importation of GWR practices, early results and comprehensive details of his design improvements culminating in the largest British pacifics, the Coronation class.