The locomotive exchanges. 2nd ed. London: Ian Allan, 1950. 176, lix pp.
Ottley 2879: the second edition included a precis of the official report by the Railway Executive on the 1948 exchanges. For other exchanges the 1949 edition is acceptable.
Locomotive practice and performance in the twentieth century.. Cambridge, Heffer, 2nd impression (revised) 1950. xvi, 302 p. + front.+ 64 plates. 151 illus., 7 diagrs., 82 tables.
Includes several chapters, phrased in simple terminology, on the design, mechanics and operation of the steam locomotive, as well as a survey of performance covering the period from about 1910 until the immediate Post-WW2 period. Performance includes City of Truro's record breaking run as well as early test runs with the Merchant Navy class.
In an extensive Foreword he acknowledged photographers: "mention especially Mr. F.E. Mackay, doyen of British express-train photographers, Canon Eric Treacy, Mr. Maurice W. Earley, and my good friends of Rail Photo Service in Boston, U.S.A., who put the whole of their vast collection of spectacular American train "shots" freely at my disposal. Acknowledgment is due also to the Public Relations Officers of British Railways for their assistance in the photographic realm. The ingenious sectional drawings by Mr. A. N. Wolstenholme are a further asset to the book. [then]
Most valuable help has been given by various friends in the revision of the proofs, and in this connection I would accord grateful thanks to Mr. J. Pelham Maitland for his scrutiny of Chapters 1 to 10, Messrs. G. J. Aston, R. E. Charlewood and A. H. Holden for their work on Chapters 11 to 16, and to Mr. Basil K. Cooper for helpful advice on Chapter 19.
I would like to pay my warm tribute to the late Mr. Ernest W. Heffer, who commissioned the book and gave much kindly encouragement during its compilation, but never lived, unfortunately, to see its completion; to his successor, Mr. Reuben Heffer, and Mr. G. Newman, for their ready agreement to all the author's most extravagant requests; and especially to Mr. L.L. Asher, of the publishers' staff, to whose railway enthusiasm the book owes its inception, and whose pleasant company, as cicerone during many lunch-time perambulations of the byways of the beautiful town of Cambridge, will remain one of the pleasantest of recollections of the time during which this volume was in production.
Most of this book was written while there were still four independent railways in Great Britain. Their names often stray into its pages where, more properly, "Regional" titles should take their places. Personally, in common with many others who share equally in the fascination of a railway interest, I cannot but regret that the invigorating competition of the past is now at an end, and that eventually all the locomotive practice of the country is to be forced into a dull mould of rigid standardisation. Fortunately, many years must elapse before all the varied characteristics and lineaments of the past disappear from view, and nothing can extinguish the memories or the glories of the great achievements of byegone days, which this book has attempted to set on record..