Travel across the country in over 100 mind-boggling puzzles written in association with the National Railway Museum, and covering challenges, extraordinary firsts, breaking new grounds and journeys that changed the world. Rearrange the letters A BONUS TREE to spell out the name of a station, The work of a navvy was physically demanding. On one day a worker started at 7am. He spent a quarter of his working day using a pickaxe. He spent 35% of his time loading wagons. He spent five hours digging. The traditional call of 'Yo-ho Yo-ho!' signalled the end of the shift. What time was that? There are not-so-ordinary crosswords, interlocking circles with nine letters in each to make out three railway stations, puzzle trips with destinations, mapping the journey, Railway Children, family excursions. Learn about the world-famous Flying Scotsman, network your own route finder, read about the speed record you have never heard about, bridges, good railway books to read, record breaking routes and trips and legendary locomotives like the Penydarren. There are anagrams, crosswords, wordsearches, logic and mathematical challenges, 100 train-based brain teasers to suit all levels. Full steam ahead. With solutions and space for notes, 236 page large softback.

Transport and stamp collecting have been brought together in this special book looking at the way postage stamps have increased our knowledge of transport worldwide. The collecting of stamps or philately is a fascinating hobby looking at the development of postal services in all its forms, designs of stamps that have evolved since the Victorian Penny-Black to today's creations, often artistic but dependent more and more on photography. The book covers the British Isles, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region, the Americas with beautiful gliders, seaplanes, single engine planes to airbuses in Brazil and Argentina on stamps of five pesos, a BAE Sea Harrier from the Falkland Islands on a £5 stamp, US Thunderbirds and Canadian Snowbirds, stamps from Indochina, the unmistakable images of Concorde and the Chengdu J10, a Xian JH-7 The Flying Leopard, and the Comac C919, a narrow-body twin jet airliner among these gleaming flying machines. Page after page of beautiful colour reproductions of stamps on 128 glossy white pages.

A companion to 91574 Black Swan Class Sloops, this volume is devoted to a ship best known for her demise, one of three sisters sunk in a matter of hours by a single U-boat in 1914. When first designed, Cressy and her sister ships were highly original, representing a novel concept that anticipated the battlecruiser and pointed the way to a line of sequentially improved armoured cruiser classes. As such they warrant more attention than is usually accorded them, and this volume details many of their interesting features and innovations. Including spectacular large gatefolds, here are the detailed original builders' technical plans, annotated and labelled drawn in multi-coloured inks and showcasing such features as a 24 inch electric light projector, the arrangement of submerged torpedo room, belt armour, fore and aft bridges, the lower deck as fitted and arranged of wood and corticene decks, the arrangement of ventilation, magazine cooling arrangements and the ship?s profile. The very gentle sheer of the Upper and Main Decks can be seen, as can the form of the 'cruiser' stern. The lower part of the hull is dominated by the propellors and rudder. The space on the Protective Deck was used for storage, with the captain's living space on the Upper Deck. The text and plans are copyright of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, in spectacular 2020 first edition publication by Pen & Sword. 128 very large pages, colour diagrams and plans throughout.
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Widely regarded as the Rolls Royce of Second World War convey escorts, heavily armed and superbly equipped for their role, the Black Swan Class of sloops and their modified derivatives were among the most effective anti-submarine ships of the Battle in the Atlantic. The design was gradually improved, and this book uses plans of four selected ships to chart that development in detail. They comprise of the original group Black Swan as built, and Flamingo as Modified post-war, and of the Modified Class Starling, the single most successful U-boat hunter of the war, shown as in 1943, and Amethyst, as refitted in 1950 after her clash with Chinese Communists on the Yangtze. The technical details of British warships were recorded in a set of plans produced by the builders on completion of every ship. Known as the 'As Fitted' general arrangements, these drawings documented the exact appearance and fitting of the ship as it entered service. They were very large, more than 12 feet long for capital ships, highly detailed, annotated and labelled and drawn with exquisite skill, often in multi-coloured inks and washes. Intended to provide a permanent reference for the Admiralty and the dockyards, they represent the Acme of the draughtsman's art. Today these plans form part of the incomparable collection at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich which uses the latest scanning technology to make digital copies of the highest quality. This book is one of a series based entirely on these draughts depicting famous warships - complete sets in full colour with many close up and enlargements and extensive captions. The companion to code 91573 Armoured Cruiser Cressy. 128 very large pages including a spectacular gatefold, colour. A Pen & Sword lavish publication.
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Written on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the book brings to life the pilots and planes involved through the stories of 18 airmen, nine from each side, and 18 different aircraft. The authors have chosen pilots from seven nations: Germans, Britons, two New Zealanders, two Swiss, one Canadian, one Pole and an Italian. Many of the featured pilots are not well known, several died in action and others spent years in captivity. A few suffered terrible wounds, while many survived remarkably unscathed, physically at least. What all these men had in common was a love of flying and a willingness to take risks that are unimaginable for those who enjoy the comfort and safety of commercial jet travel. The variety of aircraft includes the four-engine Focker-Wulf Condor and the Fiat CR42 Biplane Fighter on the Axis side, and the Boulton Paul Defiant fighter with its rear turret and the Walrus Seaplane on the Allied side. The superstars Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf109 represented considerable achievements in engineering, design and manufacturer. One or two like the Defiant and the Stuka were 'found out' in the testing cauldron of the Battle of Britain. Relatively few lives were lost on each side - 3,149 all told - yet casualty figures and the strategic significance of the Battle of Britain should not be confused. The Canadian Lord Beaverbrook, a key ally of Churchill's, transformed aircraft production in Britain, and made sure that Dowding and Park the RAF Air Chief Marshalls had the Spitfires and Hurricanes they needed to see their plan through. We meet the New Zealander who 'borrowed' a seaplane from the Royal Navy to set up a freelance air-sea rescue service that saved the lives of dozens of British and German pilots; the Swiss baron who claimed to have destroyed six British fighters in a day; the vainglorious commander whose RAF squadron was wiped out trying to disrupt Nazi invasion plans; and the German bomber pilot who fought the first battle involving foreign troops on British soil since Culloden, before repairing to a pub for a pint with soldiers who had taken him prisoner. Illus. with contemporary photos of pilots and their aircraft. 222 page paperback.

The symbolism of the English Channel goes way beyond a simple role as a conduit for shipping, trawling and the odd lard-and-lanolin-slathered maniac in goggles and swimming trunks plunging in and making for the other side. It has made us believe we are more separate than we are thanks to 'that strip of sea which severs merry England from the tardy realms of Europe - as the Church and State Review put it in 1863.' A bulwark of invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the Channel has always been many things to many people. Today it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and hosts more than 30 million passenger crossings every year, but this slither of choppy brine, just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, represents much more than a conductor of goods and people. Charlie Connelly collects its stories and brings them to life from tailing Oscar Wilde's shadow through the dark streets of Dieppe, to unearthing Britain's first beauty pageant at the end of Folkestone Pier, won by a chap called Wally! We uncover the fate of the first successful Channel swimmer, learn that Louis Blériot was actually a terrible pilot and discover how, if a man with a buttered head and pigs' bladders attached to his trousers hadn't fought off an attack by dogfish, we might never have had a Channel Tunnel. Here is a cast of extraordinary characters - cheats, dreamers, charlatans, geniuses, visionaries, eccentrics and at least one pair of naked, cuddling balloonists - whose stories are all united by the English Channel to ensure the sea that makes us an island will never be the same again. 297pp.

Nazi Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France, all involving heavy use of air power, either transporting troops or closely supporting the armoured forces on the ground. Later the RAF Fighter Command would defend Britain against the Luftwaffe's drive for air superiority over the English Channel and in the autumn the Blitz against London and other British cities. The first civilian death in an air raid on Britain in the Second World War came in March 1940, when a man was killed in an attack on the Scapa Flow Naval Base in Orkney. The RAF retaliated with a raid by 50 bombers on the German seaplane base very close to the German border with Denmark at Hornum. Events really began to move in April when Hitler fixed the date of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. One side effect of note was the occupation by British troops of Iceland on 10th May. On 30th April, believing that the Scandinavian campaign was over, Hitler ordered his generals to make their final preparations for the attack against Western Europe, and on 10th May, the assault began. What followed was the Luftwaffe's infamous bombing of Rotterdam on 14th May. The RAF adapted quickly although the Westland Lysanders proved inadequate and were withdrawn almost immediately following the German offensive. Only two of nine Blenheims returned from a mission on 12th May. The RAF deployed Hawker Hurricanes to France with the BEF, but not Spitfires, so the first the Germans would see of the Spitfire was over the beaches of Dunkirk. On 7th September almost 350 German bombers escorted by more than 600 fighters were easily able to find their targets in the London Docks and many ships were sunk and warehouses full of inflammable stores set alight. From that night until mid-November an average of 160 aircraft attacked London every night except when the weather was bad. While the Blitz in London was still raging, the war in the Mediterranean was starting to gain momentum as Mussolini ordered Italian forces to invade Greece from Albania. The Greek leader accepted the offer of RAF squadrons. These events are told in this photographic compendium of 128 pages in large softback, captioned. Some colour.

Sir Francis Kennedy McClean died at the age of 80 in 1955. As well as being an aeronaut and a pioneer pilot, he ensured the initial success of Short Brothers as an aeroplane manufacturer, served as the company's first test pilot and, in the words of that great naval aviator Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson, his generosity 'started the Navy flying'. In 1902 McClean became a director of the Cannock Chase Colliery Company, a post he retained until the company was nationalised in 1948 and on his father's death in 1904 he retired, aged only 28, with considerable independence enabling him to pursue his personal interest in astronomy. McClean was also a balloonist and pioneer aviator, flying with Wilbur Wright in France in December 1908. He provided the Royal Aero Club with one of the first flying grounds in the UK at East Church in Kent, personally purchased no fewer than 16 airplanes from Short Brothers before WWI, and acted as the company's unpaid test pilot. Convinced that aviation was destined to play a vital role in the nation's defence, he made his own aeroplanes freely available for training and ensured that the Navy had a suitable site on which to establish its first flying school. His flight up the Thames to Westminster on 10th August 1912, during which he flew between the upper and lower spans of Tower Bridge and passed beneath the other bridges, and his Nile expedition flight in 1914 caught the public imagination, but despite all these achievements he remained modest and reticent. He was happiest when he was flying at Eastchurch, well away from crowded public venues such as Hendon and Brooklands, and this meant that reports of his activities were sparce and much of his work was carried out quietly. When he did put pen to paper he was dryly witty and never afraid to have a joke at his own expense. He usually declined to take part in competitions and races, but ironically when he entered for the Around Britain Seaplane Race of 1913, his Short S.68 proved a troublesome non-starter. There is little doubt that the deaths of his close friends the Hon. Charles Rolls and Cecil Grace heightened his awareness of the increased risks entailed in flying competitively. Lavishly illustrated Seaforth publication, 184 large pages, rare images.

Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Trams, Glasgow and Preservation, this big glamorous volume concentrates on the big city systems that survived WWII. It provides a comprehensive narrative detailing a history of these operations from 1945 onwards with full fleet lists, maps and details of route openings and closures supported by almost 200 illustrations both in black and white and colour, many never before published. See the first horse-drawn services linking stations through to the closure of the last traditional tramway, Glasgow, in 1962. A number of horse cars were retained after the conversion just in case of a failure in the cable system. One of the more unusual trams to operate in Scotland was the single petrol-fuelled car operated by Stirling & Bridge of Allan Tramways Company Ltd between 1913 and 1920. Throughout the volume are fascinating glimpses of people, bold advertising, shop fronts, streets and houses and useful maps of the networks. Plus posters and tram tickets reproduced in colour, truly a nostalgic collection and information on where it is still possible to see Scotland's surviving first-generation trams in preservation. 144 very large glossy pages, illus.

The entry of the United States into WW2 provided the Allies with the industrial might to finally take the war to German and Japanese sources across the world. Central to this was the focus of the American military industrial complex on the manufacture of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. Between 1939 and 1945, 88,140 tanks and 18,620 other armoured vehicles were built - almost twice the number that Germany and Great Britain combined were able to supply. In this lavishly illustrated volume, armour expert Michael Green examines the dizzying array of machinery fielded by the US Army, from the famed M4 Sherman, M3 Stuart and M3 Lee through the half-tracks armoured cars, self-propelled artillery, tank destroyers, armoured recovery vehicles and tracked landing vehicles that provided the armoured fist that the Allies needed to break Axis resistance in Europe and the Pacific. This encyclopaedic new study detailed the design, development and construction of these vehicles, their deployment in battle, and the impact they had on the outcome of the war. With over 100 illustrations, many archive rare images and full colour plates, the story is taken right up to next-generation self-propelled guns and Howitzers. Green, grey, camouflage, on tracks, full statistical details and tables. 376 pages, paperback, 19 x 24.3cm.