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Book synopsis

SOMETIMES you come across a lofty railway viaduct, marooned in the middle of a remote country landscape. Or a crumbling platform from some once-bustling junction buried under the buddleia. If you are lucky you might be able to follow some rusting tracks, or explore an old tunnel leading to...well, who knows where? Listen hard. Is that the wind in the undergrowth? Or the spectre of a train from a golden era of the past panting up the embankment? These are the ghosts of The Lost Railways of Britain. They are railway lines - often glorious once - that are closed and gone forever. There has been a huge renaissance of interest recently in the history of the railways, with broadcasters falling over themselves to make programmes on trains. We've had Chris Tarrant's Extreme Railways and Dan Snow's Locomotion along with Pete Waterman on the world of model trains and a new BBC2 reality series called The Railway. Meanwhile Michael Portillo's travels continue to draw big audiences. But there has been much less focus on the lines that have disappeared - many of them prematurely axed and often with a gripping and colourful tale of their own. Although rail closures are most associated with the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, the axe started to fall as long ago as 1900, and there were a dozen lines that didn't even see out the Victorian era. By the time the infamous Dr Beeching came along, more than 250 branch lines had already been shut. But in the years following the Beeching Report of 1963 an orgy of closures ensued, with 6,000 miles of route slashed - a third of the network. The victims were not just obscure branch lines, but trunk-route main lines and historic termini in our big cities. This book will tell the story of the best of The Lost Railways of Britain, evoking vividly once again the glory of a bygone age, bringing it to life for the armchair traveller. Here are the tales of the pioneers who built them, the yarns of the men and women who operated them and the colourful trains - some out of Heath Robinson, others proud and grand - that ran on them.

Book details

Book category Books in English Lifestyle, sport & leisure Transport: general interest Trains & railways: general interest

• Full title: Trains Now Departed
• Author: Michael Williams
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardback
• Number of pages: 400
• EAN: 9781848094352
• ISBN: 1848094353
• ID: 05190204
• Publisher: Preface Publishing
• Weight: 587 g
• Dimensions: 240 × 156 × 28 mm
• Date of publishing: 07. May 2015

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