Whereas the previous volume covered the lines from Dudley to Walsall and Lichfield, this book takes us from Walsall to Cannock and on to Rugeley, together with ample coverage of the various colliery lines in the Cannock area.

The first five chapters cover the full history, together with some unsuccessful proposals. The links with the LNWR are well featured. The author gives a very good description of the line, and locomotive workings both past and present. A very full appendix gives details of the extremely varied industrial locomotives which once worked in the area.

Fascinating details include the GWR's use of delivery vans from the stations to the many small towns and villages on the Lizard, which together with use of omnibuses shows that the GWR were forward thinking in many ways and perhaps this should have been built on more sensibly. The proposed extension down the Lizard is also mentioned in some depth. In view of the current resurgence of west country branches, it is indeed a shame that it closed in the 1960s. Let us wish the preservation group every success in their endeavours to bring the rails back.

The 125th anniversary of the opening of the branch line from Wareham to Swanage provides Mr Jackson the opportunity to produce another detailed study of one of Dorset's railways. In fact, the story goes back further than the opening of the railway in 1885 as after an introduction to the Isle of Purbeck, the second chapter describes the clay tramways of Messrs Fayle and Pike dating back to 1804. The following chapters cover Swanage Pier, the arrival of paddle steamers to the town in the 1860s and early schemes for a railway.

Being a holiday resort, passenger traffic to Swanage was at its peak in the summer months before and after the Second World War. There were several through trains to and from Waterloo on Saturdays and through coaches every weekday off the 'Royal Wessex' train. However, in view of the number of military establishments in the area, the line was of great importance in the war, as it was in WWI, for military traffic both passenger and freight. An illustration shows a rail-mounted gun on a special siding put in off the branch.

With the increase in car ownership and in foreign holidays, passenger traffic declined in the 1960s and although not included in the Beeching Report, British Railways decided to close the line. Against much local opposition, services ceased from 3 January 1972, apart from the short stub to Furzebrook used for clay and oil traffic until 2005. The remainder of the route was lifted but meanwhile a society was formed to preserve the line and its success is described in the final chapter, gradually extending from the restored station area at Swanage to Corfe Castle and the Park and Ride station at Norden. The connection with the National network has now been restored and a number of charter trains have visited the railway, with plans under consideration for a restored regular service to connect with main line trains at Wareham.

This book reminded me that I was in Swanage at Easter both in 1971 and 1972 and had to return to London on the evening of Easter Monday. On the first occasion it was no problem taking the demu then working the branch to connect with the London train at Wareham but in the following year I had to be taken by car to Wareham and even though plenty of time was allowed, such was the traffic on the road that I missed my connection and had to take a slower train one hour later.

This interesting book provides a comprehensive history of the line and is well illustrated with photos of trains, stations and much else throughout the 125 years as well as maps and track diagrams and a comprehensive index. Very good value and recommended. 

This is an in-depth work benefiting from exhaustive primary research and consequently - giving great value for the cover price of £19.95. It describes the origins of the South Staffordshire Railway Company (SSR), its subsequent history and the fate of the railway after the company ceased to exist as a separate entity. This volume covers the line from Dudley, through Walsall and Lichfield to Wichnor Junction on the former Midland Railway, including the Black Country branches. A second volume will examine the line from Walsall through Cannock to Rugeley, together with the numerous mineral lines that served the

There are eleven chapters with five very useful appendices and the book is copiously illustrated with photographs, maps, plans and gradient profiles. Moreover, it describes the people who were concerned with promoting, building and managing the SSR - an essential aspect of railway history that is often overlooked or given scant attention. This is an absolute must for railway enthusiasts living in the West Midlands and for residents living in the area who are interested in industrial history. For others it is a shining example of how to write railway history and will make a welcome addition to any railway enthusiast's library.

Two particular highlights for me were a reminder that the 'Pines Express' was once routed via Walsall and the revelation that pigs transported to Palethorpes' sausage factory near Sedgeley Junction were classed as 'cattle'. I run a Palethorpes' train on my model railway and it has now taken on a whole new perspective. Hitherto I have only concentrated on the finished product! I eagerly await volume two.

A compact guide to anything and everything to do with Wales and its railways. Besides a description of each railway and railway line in the Principality there are useful chapters on the geography, a brief history of Wales and of the railways of Wales.

Besides full details GPS and map references plus contact details are given. In fact everything that the traveller would want to know and are likely to experience when they reach their destination. Besides details for Wales the book covers the 'Borders' with mention of the Perrygrove Railway which members of the Midland Area enjoyed on a visit in September 2009 (March/ApriI 2010 'Journal' p.82).

Anthony Robinson's father, John Robinson, was born in 1902. He was the son of the Assistant Chief Electrical Engineer, (also John Robinson!) of the London and North Western Railway. John Robinson Senior's father, Ben Robinson, was an LNWR driver in a career of some 52 years. Thus we have a book that covers three generations and a period of railway history stretching from the late 19th Century to the 1960s.

'Dad' - the John Robinson who is the subject of the book - began as an apprentice at Willesden, before being moved, in 1925, to Llandudno Junction shed as a fitter. After WW2, and following short periods in the sheds at Rhyl and Sowerby Bridge, he went to Mold Junction as Shed Foreman.

The reminiscences cover all these events, and there are also chapters dealing with Wartime, Accidents, Friends and Colleagues, and - perhaps the reviewers favourite - Holidays and High Days, a glorious series of descriptions of journeys with his father, travelling the length and breadth of the country.

There are maps, track diagrams, timetables and many photographs including some early ones. The quality may be lacking but this is not a standard history book but a record of railway life in South Wales. The stories are interesting, amusing, hair raising but a valuable record of a way life now gone.

Whether you know anything about South Wales and its railways this is a book which deserves to be on every railway enthusiast's shelves - highly recommended.

Alloway is of course in the heart of Robert Burns territory, and there are many appropriate references to Robert Burns in this book. Alloway station was the scene of a footbridge collapse in 1948, with one fatality, and the event and subsequent enquiry are described.  Included in the traffic detail are the potato trains, and various PWI readers will be delighted to know there is a sizeable golfing content!

There is a useful chapter on permanent way and signalling, and further engineering aspects occur in the description of the construction as well as the occasional accident in the early days. Single line apart from passing loops at Bishop's Stortford, Dunmow and Braintree, the line was something of a switchback, up hill and down dale with gradients as steep as 1 in 61.

Illustrations pertinent to the text abound, ranging from station layout diagrams, maps, timetables to a wide selection of photographs - nearly 300 illustrations in all.

Although the line has been closed for forty years the trackbed has since been reopened by Essex County Council as 'The Flitch Way' with wardens based at the sites of Takeley and Rayne stations. Should any PWI member elect to venture along this walking route, where once steamed a wide range of Great Eastern and later locomotives, they would be strongly advised to take this excellent reference book along with them. It is an invaluable piece of work and well worth the money.

Edward Hamer

Having described the line's origins in Volume One, Jackson brings us up to date with descriptions of nationalisation, electrification and more - in impressive detail. To emphasise the historical context of his subject, he even goes to Wool station on 1 June 2007, to photograph a class 444 'Desiro' electric leaving for Waterloo exactly 160 years after the opening of the original line. . Chapters are devoted, inter alia, to World War II and its aftermath, electrification (first to Bournemouth, later Weymouth), the evolution of signalling, and the line's architecture and infrastructure. There's even some information (and rare pictures) about the short-lived Bovington Camp line, opened in 1919, just too late to be involved in the First World War, closed nine years later and tom up in 1936.

Oakwood Press, in whose series The Oakwood Library of Railway History this new book is No l44B, has certainly provided plenty of reading matter for devotees of the railways of south Dorset. The first edition of Roger Kidner's The Railways of Purbeck,which appeared in 1973; was a modest book of 48 pages, but the third edition (2000) has 96. Then there's Colin Stone's Rails to Poole Harbour, which between its first (1999) and second (2007) editions expanded from 144 to 208 pages. Slightly further a field, there's an Oakwood book on the Bridport Railway, and a trio of volumes about the Railways of Portland, in all of which B L Jackson is involved as author. Now I understand that Jackson is turning his attention to the Swanage Railway, a pretty and now preserved branch line which has already spawned a number of histories. As a one time resident of Wareham, I await its publication with interest.

This is an updated version of a book first published in 2002 (Review No 102) containing additional information supplied to the author, and a slightly amended portfolio of photographs. There is little more that needs adding to the earlier review. Interest in major railway accidents remains high both because of the drama of the events themselves, and the impact they have on railway safety procedures. The accident at Harrow was, and thankfully remains, the worst peace time railway disaster in terms of casualties. And yet, at a time when death and tragedy during the then recent Second World War had become all too commonplace, the public and media reaction seems remarkably muted by today's standards - but then this was many years before the 24 hour rolling news phenomenon we have to endure today. Thus trains were running past the accident site within a few hours even though the recovery work was still taking place, in sharp contrast with the practice today where any significant incident leads to line closure for days if not weeks.

If anything, the book's matter of fact style adds extra poignancy to the individual tragedies created by the accident, many to railway families, since a large number of the casualties in the local train where staff from the railway headquarters offices at Euston. Several of these stories are related in the book, but one is struck by the determined and committed manner which all those involved got on with the job of recovery without fuss and without drama. We get some small insight into how some of those caught up in this work were affected, for the rest one can only imagine.

This is a remarkable account that can be recommended without hesitation. Indeed my only critical comment is actually a positive. The sub-title 'Clearing up the Aftermath' in my view undersells the book, since it is much more than this including as it does an account of the circumstances leading up to the accident itself.

The ramifications of Harrow & Wealdstone were considerable. This is a valuable record and analysis for those interested in such matters.

A major plus is that as he progresses through the tests and tasks that are required of footplate crews, he takes the trouble to explain the 'whys and wherefores' of train equipment such as the historical background to the development of the continuous vacuum brake (principally the Armagh disaster) and the fact that human carelessness can defeat the absolute block system - witness the Abermule accident. This is done in a cogent style that the non- technical can easily understand.

Of course, there is the personal background to learning how to fire and drive steam locomotives on a very testing railway - for men and machines. There are virtually no flat stretches on the Mid-Hants, so it's either hoping that there is enough steam to get up the hill (without slipping or blowing off) or avoiding braking too hard and stopping short. All this is told against the background of the very mixed diet of locomotives based on, or visiting, the railway and on which Richardson gives some personal views of their strengths and weaknesses. .

For most of us, the chance to fire or drive a steam locomotive comes only by parting with a considerable sum of money on an 'experience' day. But this book gives a first rate and very readable introduction to the life of the modem steam footplateman on one of our preserved railways. Highly recommended.

The town of Newquay grew from a very small village at the turn of the 19th century to a popular holiday resort today, famous for its surfing. (As this reviewer's article 'Atlantic Cost Express - 2008' in this 'Journal', pages 24-26 has pointed out). It is still served by rail, even if this is only a limited service on the 20-mile branch from Par on the Cornwall main line.

These tramways later formed part of the Cornwall Minerals Railway, a standard 4ft 8½in gauge line, which extended across the county from Fowey in the south to Newquay in the north. The line opened for goods in 1874 and passengers in 1876, initially worked by steam locomotives ordered from Sharp Stewart. The extension to the harbour at Newquay was on a gradient of 1 in 4 through tunnel with limited headroom and this was worked by horses. until traffic dwindled to nothing and It was formally closed in 1926. Loss of revenue and a fall in mineral traffic caused the GWR to work the line from 1877. Through traffic from the rest of the system was not possible until the final conversion of the broad gauge in 1892. The entire CMR system was eventually purchased by the GWR in 1896 and a chapter covers the improvements carried out under their ownership including the development of holiday traffic. The following chapter continues the story of the line under British Railways and Privatisation up to the present day.

We are still only half way through the book and the subsequent chapters detail the history and development of each section of the lines to Newquay which, as well as the existing line from Par, include the line from Fowey to St Blazey (now a road exclusively for china clay lorries), Par Harbour, various mineral branches, and the line from Chacewater via Perranporth opened by the GWR between 1903 and 1905. The text is supplemented by many photographs ranging from early views of Newquay including what is supposedly a passenger train taken on 29 June 1876 to present day scenes. There are maps, a gradient profile and a useful index.

The author has tackled his subject with enthusiasm to produce a detailed work at a modest price.

A tortillard is French argot for a narrow gauge railway, probably from tortiller, to twist. This is one of the many revelations in this excellent book which could stand as a model of how to do it. For example, it has clear maps at the start of each section; it helps the reader with glossaries, conversion tables and a detailed index. Like all sound histories, it knows how to relate primary and secondary sources, and it sets its narrative in context - not too heavily, but enough to assist the reader in getting the hang of a railway culture, history and geography, and even jargon, very different from that of, say, Kent - only some 21 miles away.

The subject matter is the network of local metre-gauge lines (with a few 60cm exceptions), at various times steam, electric or diesel powered, that filled gaps left by the Nord system in the Calais-Boulogne area and its hinterland. Some were fully-fledged railways with their own rights of way, others a species of interurban tramway. Their corporate histories, routes, motive power and rolling stock are covered thoroughly.

The area in question suffered two massive historical discontinuities, WWI and WW2, and these, in their way, disrupt the narrative. The Great War found the British constructing a system of their own, well described by the authors. But, breaking the narrative at 1914 and 1939 has prevented them from carrying the story of each line through from start to finish, unbroken.

In practice, the logical organisation of the book and the thorough index guide a reader through this unavoidable labyrinth. An abundance of illustrations .serves the text, as do numerous, painstaking tables. Locomotivologists will have a fine time studying motive power that included products of SACM, Corpet, SLM Winterthur (two unusual 2-10-0Ts and Renault.

Anyone wishing to see what remains of these yanished systems is supplied with a useful and up-to-date guide. Tortillards is remarkably good value, a tribute to painstaking and animated scholarship.