When Blake Paterson went to work on the Western Region Railway in 1960, some senior staff still wore wing collars and tall hats, but the era of steam was already giving way to diesel locomotives. The restructuring of the railways announced in the Beeching Report of 1963 would close down over half of Britain's branch line stations, and in the 1960s the young Paterson went out and about with his camera at weekends recording the engines, stations, platforms, signal boxes, gas lamps and railway ephemera that would soon be lost for ever. Photos from his collection taken over 10 years form the basis of this fascinating record of a vanished world. Starting in the south west, the photos cover all regions from Bodmin to Thurso. The Bude line had pretty stations like Whitstone and Bridgerule, pictured here, while an Ivatt 2-6-2 steam train belching black smoke is strikingly photographed on the Torrington-Halwill line. Moving east, Blake managed to photograph the "Tivvy Bumper" push and pull at Halberton Halt on the Tiverton line. In 1965 the Standard Class steam engine 76065 is seen leaving Corfe Castle on the Swanage line, which once again in the 21st century runs heritage steam trains. In the east of England, the station at New Romney and Littlestone-on-Sea was most used by visitors heading for the narrow gauge Hythe and Dymchurch railway. The Oxford-Fairford line was a pre-Beeching close, pictured here with a pannier tank 5700 Class in the platform. In 1964, two weeks before closure, a railwayman lights the crossing gas lamps at St Mary's Crossing Halt near Chagford. Impressive viaducts in this collection include Crumlin in south Wales, with several spectacular photos of what was then the third highest viaduct in the world. Moving east, the towers of Stamford in Lincolnshire are the backdrop to the "Seaton Flyer" in1965. Going north, Liverpool's Central station is impressively blackened and industrial. Wennington near Carnforth was a Lancashire rural junction that miraculously survives today. The Cumbrian coast, Tyneside, Scotland and northern Ireland are also represented in this evocative collection. 25 x 26cm, 168pp, colour photos on every page.
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