The Branch Line Age: The Minor Railways of the British Isles in Memoriam and Re

The Branch Line Age: The Minor Railways of the British Isles in Memoriam and Retrospect

The rural branch-line railway is now a thing of the past. From the 1930s the minor railways of Britain declined in use, until economic necessity finally caused their closure in the early sixties following the Beeching Report. This book portrays the character of these rural lines with a fine collection of photographs, mostly taken by the author. Here captured is a view of branch-line life from its heyday, through declining years, to closure and final abandonment. Pictures of stations as they disappear, turn into private houses or become gardens are vividly recorded for the historian. There are also photographs of last-day running; special excursions over weed-grown tracks which had not been traversed for years; the pre-war Colonel Ste-phens railways; the Fintona horse tram; Velentia Harbour, the most westerly station in Europe; Tullow, which only saw one train a month; the Jones Goods making a foray into Highland territory; the Isle of Wight, cut off from the mainland and unaffected by the Southern Railway's modern electric network. This is a book that conveys the atmosphere of life on the minor lines and will be welcomed both by railway enthusiasts and by those who recall the more leisurely life of the past that is now only a memory. A valuable appendix lists all the closures, both main- and branch-line, from the Beeching Report in 1963 to 1976.