CONFESSIONS OF A STEAM-AGE FERROEQUINOLOGIST

Journeys on BR's London Midland Region written by someone who studies the Iron Horse (from the Latin ferrus and equine). Where else can you see archive images of the Locomotive Club of Great Britain membership card, the LMS Timetable of Passenger Services from April 1966 to March 67, the Wolverton and Newport Pagnell timetable or another for Rugby and Market Harborough to Stamford and Peterborough? In his fifth book, steam engine buff Keith Widdowson describes his self-imposed mission to travel behind as many steam locomotives as feasible as the months went by from March 1966 and steam passenger services were becoming fewer. In this way it is a travelogue of those expeditions undertaken during his teenage years and along with like-minded friends they led a carefree existence untroubled by world events in the frenzied pursuit of the centrepiece of their hobby - the steam locomotive. We join him on his quest - the successes, disappointments, scenarios encountered and above all the realisation that history was being enacted and that one of the last vestiges of the Industrial Revolution, the Iron Horse, was being extinguished. Chapter headings include The Gone Completely Railway 1955-66, The Electric Effect 1966, Super Summer Saturdays 1966, Mancunian Meanderings 1966-67, The Preston Portions, Steam's Last Hurrah on the WCML 1967. 272 page large softback with over 100 archive images reproduced to the best possible quality.