From steam to diesel and electric, this wonderful gallery of archive and colour photographs reflects the once-in-a-lifetime change across our railway system. After steam finished on the main line on 11th August 1968, something had to take its place - something modern, less difficult to maintain, and that was a natural progression. 'Modernisation' was the word. British Railways, and later privatised companies, developed other methods of providing power. The shape and power of locomotives continued to change as 'railwaymania' took effect, although locomotives built in the late 1800s were still in revenue-earning use up until the end of steam. In this book, we travel through the years to the end of steam and beyond initially through photographs of replicas of the locomotives in use at the time from Richard Trevithick and his early efforts, to mainline Virgin Pendolinos and other traction used on the privatised lines. Those privatised lines remained through thick and thin until British Railways was nationalised in 1948. Between the wars, in 1923 the diverse companies were amalgamated into the Big Four, and then in 1948 we had full nationalisation. Here are steam engines given names like Puffing Billy built in 1813 and its sister engine Wylam Dilly which is also preserved and can be found at the National Museum of Scotland. A superb gallery of 200 never-before-seen photographs paired with fond and nostalgic captions to take the reader down memory lane and giving an indication of where we can still find preserved locomotives. 144 landscape large pages, some colour.
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