SUSSEX STEAM

'First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the numerous photographers who had the foresight to record the steam age in Sussex and have permitted me to borrow their cherished and irreplaceable images for publication in this album.' Today Sussex is best known to railway aficionados as the home of the Bluebell Line, Britain's first preserved standard gauge passenger-carrying railway, but at one time the sound of steam could be heard across the country. Many mainline routes had been electrified in the 1930s, but only the passenger services were affected, and well into the BR era, steam traction continued unchallenged on a variety of tasks, ranging from Bulleid Pacifics on long distance and inter-regional expresses, to diminutive LBSCR 'Terriers' pottering around on menial shunting duties. Some distinctive designs such as the elegant Billinton K Class 'Moguls', were closely associated with Sussex and gave the county a special identity. We take a nostalgic journey on the Hellingly Hospital Railway, Hastings to Ashford, Eastbourne to Tunbridge Wells, the East Coast Line, Three Bridges, and visitors to Brighton like the Caledonian Railway 'single' or a GNR no. 1247, the Brighton Line to Hayward Heath, Pulborough to Midhurst, West Grinstead and East Grinstead, Chichester and Shoreham-by-Sea. With reproductions of original tickets, timetables, archive photographs beautifully restored and reproduced, and dozens of colour images on these bright white glossy pages. Large sized, 112pp.