TRANSPORT TRAVELOGUE OF BRITAIN

'By Road, Rail and Water 1948-1972' is the sub-title of this lavish heavyweight Silver Link Silk Edition, a companion to code 94649 By Rail to The Music Halls. Turn back the calendar to the mid 20th century and the wet cobblestones of Preston Station, a strategic junction on Lancashire's railways in 1962 with the 11.30am departure for Southport waiting, one of the 'call offices' and an old wooden telephone booth still visible. When your train arrived it was anything from six to 14 coaches long with a guard's/luggage van at one end for large luggage, prams, bicycles, motorcycles, small merchandise and baskets of racing pigeons under supervision of the guard. When we ride these coaches on preserved steam railways today we contrast them with the hard-padded, airline-style seating in the claustrophobic modern coaches with their masked views from the seats behind. The steam locomotive on the head of your train barked and hissed as it blasted its way out of town in a volcanic cloud of black smoke and white steam and gathered speed, the exhaust echoing against bridges and lineside buildings. We galloped through the countryside at 70mph on a well oiled network. The author's father passed down his 1925 vintage Kodak Brownie No.2 box camera to him when he was 10, and this photographer always looks back. This combined edition covers all of the country from Kent, London and Sussex, Wessex to Cornwall, Norfolk to Cheshire, Widnes to Furness, Yorkshire to the Border, Wales, Man and Scotland. Approximately 500 quality nostalgic colour and black and white images witnessing the twilight of the canal trade, tramways, steam railways, trolleybuses, ocean liners, harbours, shipyards, horse-draw vehicles and steam road locomotive. 336 glossy colourful pages, satin pagemarker.