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It was during the 1964 Autumn half term that a young Paul Cooper picked up a copy of Modern Railways at Kings Cross, inside was a story announcing of the £15 million Bournemouth electrification scheme, due for completion in early 1967. He knew that would represent the elimination of a 100% steam service in a little over two years and so he resolved to record as much of the action as he could, before it was gone forever.Over the next three years, Paul fulfilled that promise by travelling all over the Southern Region, photographing not just the special services of the era, but moreover the daily workings and the scenes in the stations, sidings and workshops where steam locomotives were seeing out their final years in service.Now, to mark 50 years since the last steam services ran in the UK, Paul has teamed-up with Crécy Publishing to bring many of these glorious photographs into publication for the first time. In addition to Paul''s own photographs, Southern Steam Swansong also includes images from other photographers, including in particular a selection from a recently uncovered cache of previously unknown large format colour Ektachrome images, all recorded on a German-made Rolleiflex camera.In all, Southern Steam Swansong contains over 250 photographs, of which 187 are in colour and around 90% have never been published before. These stunning images are supported by detailed captions which tell the story not just of the images themselves, but of the people, places and machinery that were part of the Southern Railway in these years of transition from a steam railway to the diesel and electric era.As well as being of the highest technical quality, the images of Southern Steam Swansong are at once an evocative, detailed and lasting record of places and times that are now half a century behind us. Anyone with an interest in this time will find a wealth of information in these pages, and for any railway enthusiast, modeller or historian this will be the ultimate pictorial tribute to the swansong.

The origins of the Great Western Railway lay in the desire of leading merchants in the city of Bristol for a rapid link to London to maintain the role of the city''s port in trade with the Americas in the face of growing competition from Liverpool. The crests of both cities were incorporated into the GWR''s coat of arms. As the railway network expanded throughout the nineteenth century, Bristol became an increasingly important railway centre with the Midland Railway joining the GWR in serving the city and with tracks expanding into the docks and major industrial complexes as a consequence of increasing trade. In this new all colour book, Bristol based railway expert Gerry Nichols explores the great variety of lines and workings in the greater Bristol area that were still active from the 1950s onwards using the superb photographs taken by the late Mark Warburton. The photos are accompanied by detailed captions throughout. Contained within the pages of the book is a veritable feast of steam engines and early diesels, at work on main lines, secondary routes, branches and dock and industrial lines in and around the city. The photos cover that fascinating period in the 1950s and the early 1960s when steam was beginning to be eclipsed by modern traction. The book is an absolute delight not just for Bristolians but also for all who are interested in the city, its hinterland and in the complex network of lines which served it.

For over 50 years myths have abounded about the closure of the Westerham branch line. This explosive new account investigates how British Railways managers went about closing a well-loved branch line. Using official papers and documents kept hidden for many years, the book reveals how users of the line almost managed to keep it open and that BR had even started to electrify it only for Ernest Marples, the controversial Minister of Transport, to insist that closure must go ahead. Starting with a history of the branch line from Westerham through Brasted and Chevington to Dunton Green, we learn of the difficulties experienced before it opened for traffic in July 1881. However, by 1960 competition from buses meant that the railway was reportedly losing £26,000 a year and the last public services ran in October 1961. Pressure persuaded British Railways to grant a local interest group permission to lease the railway, a decision later rescinded in view of plans for what would become the M25 motorway.This unhappy story is now laid bare: warts and all. The book exposes how, when local people and enthusiasts tried to bring their railway back to life, civil servants and BR managers were panicked by the prospect that a preserved Westerham line might prove local railways could be run more efficiently, at the time when the government was determined to sacrifice the rail network upon the altar of an upgraded road system. It describes the deception and increasingly underhand methods that were used to block the scheme and how the truth of the closure

Following the demise of steam, there was for a while the impression that the contemporary railway scene would be of little interest to the enthusiast. This book is an exercise in nostalgia featuring the early diesel area, which is now as much a part of history, as the steam age.