Railway books discussion

[Calthrop]

One of my Christmas presents was "Seats of London", a guide to London Transport moquette patterns, how they are designed, made et cetera. Best railway (though also covers other transport) book got for ages.

Hoping not to offend; but I admit to having wondered initially whether this was a "wind-up", and to having thus Googled Seats of London -- whereby: very sorry about aforesaid unjustified thoughts ! In honesty, a book which wouldn't be "my bag"; but I'm sure the same applies re many participants here, and the kind of books about which I've posted on this thread.

 

[Taunton]

Hoping not to offend; but I admit to having wondered initially whether this was a "wind-up", and to having thus Googled Seats of London -- whereby: very sorry about aforesaid unjustified thoughts ! In honesty, a book which wouldn't be "my bag"; but I'm sure the same applies re many participants here, and the kind of books about which I've posted on this thread.

Is it written by by Vicki?

 

[hexagon789]

Is it written by by Vicki?

Andrew Martin.

Perhaps a 'Moquettes of London' would be more Vicki's thing?

 

[birchesgreen]

Hoping not to offend; but I admit to having wondered initially whether this was a "wind-up", and to having thus Googled Seats of London -- whereby: very sorry about aforesaid unjustified thoughts ! In honesty, a book which wouldn't be "my bag"; but I'm sure the same applies re many participants here, and the kind of books about which I've posted on this thread.

Its a lovely little book to be honest, title probably does needs some work though.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

'Netzkarte' by Sten Nadolny is a 'Bildungsroman' about a young lad travelling around Germany by train, quite amusing
No sure whether an English translation has been published
..
I have a couple of books about toilets. A history of toilets on trains could be fascinating

 

[Calthrop]

Is it written by by Vicki?

Andrew Martin.

Perhaps a 'Moquettes of London' would be more Vicki's thing?

I own up to being far from au fait with a great deal about today's world: "Vicki" as referenced here, meant nothing to me -- googling "Vicki", yielded a bewildering array of assorted actresses, journalists, athletes, TV personalities, wrestlers(!), commercial officers, and heads of information security and compliance: no obvious moquette experts. Please could some kind person(s) enlighten me?

 

[Peter C]

I own up to being far from au fait with a great deal about today's world: "Vicki" as referenced here, meant nothing to me -- googling "Vicki", yielded a bewildering array of assorted actresses, journalists, athletes, TV personalities, wrestlers(!), commercial officers, and heads of information security and compliance: no obvious moquette experts. Please could some kind person(s) enlighten me?

I believe they're referring to Vicki Pipe, one half of the 'All The Stations' team, the other half being Geoff Marshall, well-known for his YouTube videos on railways.
Their website for All The Stations can be found here: http://allthestations.co.uk/ and Geoff's YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/geofftech2

Hope this helps.

-Peter

 

[hexagon789]

I own up to being far from au fait with a great deal about today's world: "Vicki" as referenced here, meant nothing to me -- googling "Vicki", yielded a bewildering array of assorted actresses, journalists, athletes, TV personalities, wrestlers(!), commercial officers, and heads of information security and compliance: no obvious moquette experts. Please could some kind person(s) enlighten me?

Vicki Pipe, one half of the duo (Geoff Marshall is the other) that did All the Stations where they visited the entire GB rail network and filmed a series of YouTube videos documenting their journey.

It's an in-joke that Vicki is somewhat of an enthusiast of moquettes, in particular those of TfL, hence the reference.

 

[Calthrop]

I believe they're referring to Vicki Pipe, one half of the 'All The Stations' team, the other half being Geoff Marshall, well-known for his YouTube videos on railways.
Their website for All The Stations can be found here: http://allthestations.co.uk/ and Geoff's YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/geofftech2

Hope this helps.

-Peter

Vicki Pipe, one half of the duo (Geoff Marshall is the other) that did All the Stations where they visited the entire GB rail network and filmed a series of YouTube videos documenting their journey.

It's an in-joke that Vicki is somewhat of an enthusiast of moquettes, in particular those of TfL, hence the reference.

Many thanks: I'd never previously heard of either of them -- seems that (per a quick Google) they're husband and wife. As indicated, in many respects I live under a rock.

 

[hexagon789]

Many thanks: I'd never previously heard of either of them -- seems that (per a quick Google) they're husband and wife. As indicated, in many respects I live under a rock.

Yes they married a couple of years ago iirc; Geoff in particular produces a frequent array of mostly rail (some bus and other transport)-related videos on YouTube such as the least used stations in each county, newly opened or refurbished stations, least used London Underground stations by line and so on.

Their All the Stations (and All the Stations Ireland and Isle of Man spin-offs) series are well worth a look

 

[Peter C]

Many thanks: I'd never previously heard of either of them -- seems that (per a quick Google) they're husband and wife. As indicated, in many respects I live under a rock.

You're very welcome I'd agree with @hexagon789 in saying that their various series are very good; they've also made a book each about the national network (Geoff) and London Underground (Vicki) I believe.

-Peter

 

[hexagon789]

You're very welcome I'd agree with @hexagon789 in saying that their various series are very good; they've also made a book each about the national network (Geoff) and London Underground (Vicki) I believe.

-Peter

You're correct about the books but authorship is the other way around - Geoff is the self-confessed "tube geek", they did contribute to each other's book though.

 

[Peter C]

You're correct about the books but authorship is the other way around - Geoff is the self-confessed "tube geek", they did contribute to each other's book though.

Oh yes - woops I need to buy those books and see what they're like.

-Peter

 

[Mcr Warrior]

What are the other book(s)?

I have a copy of their joint effort "The Railway Adventures" published 2018 by September Publishing.

 

[Peter C]

What are the other book(s)?

I have a copy of their joint effort "The Railway Adventures" published 2018 by September Publishing.

'Great British Railways - 50 things to see and do' - primarily by Vicki, and 'The London Underground - 50 things to see and do' - primarily by Geoff.

-Peter

 

[Calthrop]

Have just come across, purely by chance, mention of a particular novel by China Mieville -- with whose work I'm not familiar; was aware only that he's a prolific author of very varied, and very weird, fiction. It seems that this particular one is called Railsea; it's a re-working of Moby Dick, but involving the hunting of giant killer moles from trains . Sample bit of "blurb": "On board the moletrain 'Meles, 'Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarphunt. The giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one's death and the other's glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, 'Sham can't shake the sense that there is more to life than travelling the endless rails of the railsea -- even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-coloured mole she's been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago..." -- and we learn incidentally, that the Fat Controller from "Thomas" plays a cameo role in the novel...

My attention was chiefly attracted by the railway-related aspect of this described work. One wonders whether on closer acquaintance, it might be felt to be wonderfully and absorbingly mad -- or, just plain mad...

 

[daveinstoke]

I am after a book about the 2 Ivatt Princess Coronations, any help appreciated.
Dave.

 

[John Webb]

I am after a book about the 2 Ivatt Princess Coronations, any help appreciated.
Dave.

Look out for "The L.M.S. Pacifics" by J.W.P. Rowledge, published by David and Charles in 1987, ISBN 0-7153-8776-6. This covers both the 'Princess Royal' and 'Coronation' classes in some detail. There are several pages (61-63) detailing the differences between the earlier locos and these two.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Amazon are offering this in hardback and poperback versions at various prices, although the latter is currently unavailable.

 

[daveinstoke]

Thanks guy's, will keep a lookout.
Dave.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Various online booksellers seem to have the Rowledge title available, either new or used, hardback or soft cover.

Maybe try www.bookfinder.com/ and type in (or cut and paste) the ISBN number.

 

[daveinstoke]

Its a very interesting subject about these two loco's. Keen to know more about them.
Dave.

 

[seaviewer]

skimming through this thread prompted me to dig out Steam Up by Eric Treacy, circa 1955. Superb photographs and a very readable style. Had me wallowing in nostalgia in no time. Several booksellers have copies at £5-10.

 

[Peter C]

skimming through this thread prompted me to dig out Steam Up by Eric Treacy, circa 1955. Superb photographs and a very readable style. Had me wallowing in nostalgia in no time. Several booksellers have copies at £5-10.

Another one of his books is Lure of Steam - originally printed 1966, with reprints in 1967 and 1968, it's full of brilliant photos of steam engines from all sorts of angles (one of the chapters is all about different views of locos) and really shows what the age of steam was like. It was printed by Ian Allan Ltd. and originally cost 63s.

-Peter

 

[Calthrop]

skimming through this thread prompted me to dig out Steam Up by Eric Treacy, circa 1955. Superb photographs and a very readable style. Had me wallowing in nostalgia in no time. Several booksellers have copies at £5-10.

Another one of his books is Lure of Steam - originally printed 1966, with reprints in 1967 and 1968, it's full of brilliant photos of steam engines from all sorts of angles (one of the chapters is all about different views of locos) and really shows what the age of steam was like. It was printed by Ian Allan Ltd. and originally cost 63s.

-Peter

Something of a counterpart of Treacy, though of the generation after his; whom I discovered for the first time a few years ago -- one W. Elgar Dickinson (on whom, shortly after my coming across him, I started a thread on these Forums: in Railway History and Nostalgia; thread commenced 24 / 6 / 2017). Three books by Dickinson have appeared to date: A Friend in Steam; Steam: The Mystic Harmony; and Steeped in Steam. This author was born in 1936 (still with us, I gather, though not in good health); became captivated by railways and the steam locomotive, from infancy -- started his "railwaying" early, and got around most parts of the rail system of Great Britain in public-railway steam's last three decades -- was born and spent his early life in Leicester: "got in the bag" much fascinating and early-vanished stuff, especially in the Midlands. He photographed what he saw, and illustrates his books with it; but unlike Treacy, he's not a highly painstaking "artistic" photographer -- his interest was primarily in seeing as many individual members as possible of Great Britain's steam loco fleet, and writing about these doings.

I have read the first of Dickinson's three books as above, A Friend in Steam: would recommend it as highly interesting -- a couple of "buts" however, to the recommendation. I consider that style-wise, he writes well; and in my opinion, he's fine as long as he sticks to railways and steam locos: but his rather frequent in-book wanderings into other topics, I often found as annoying as hell: thanks to what comes across as his general outlook on life, and his -- for me -- overly "good conceit" of himself as a highly worthwhile and praiseworthy citizen, and the dim view he seems to take of many folk who are unlike him. Thanks to the just-described; and to his strictly confining his railway interest, to Great Britain; I have steered clear of the other two books, reckoning that for me the "upside" would at best, only counterbalance the "downside". I'd imagine that a good number of potential readers of this gentleman's books, would be in these matters, not as hard-to-please as me.

 

[Western Sunset]

Just ordered a copy - only £3 (with free postage!) on eBay. Will let you know what I think.

Just started reading Dickinson's book, mentioned in post #85. Think this might be a Marmite-type of work; I don't like Marmite.

Three chapters in and I'm already getting irritated. The author likes to use ten words when two or three will suffice. I know it's easy to go off on a tangent, along the paths and trackways towards a golden sunset, with clouds scudding across the horizon, but... Help! It's catching! Also, he overuses the exclamation mark. Occasionally it's fine, but please, not so often! Honestly! No, certainly not!

There are some photos to accompany the text and are well reproduced. However, the author often explains how such-and-such a photo was taken, but it's not included in the book. So frustrating! Yes, really!

I hope it gets better. Yes!

A week or so later....

Haven't given up on the book yet! There are, actually, some very interesting sections when he worked as a porter/carriage cleaner at the main stations in Leicester during his school/uni holidays. I don't recall those aspects of railway life ever having been written about before. There are still parts which grate though, especially when he's always maligning mere trainspotters. Also, as already mentioned, he refers to photos in great detail which are not reproduced in the book. The selection of photos are also not arranged chronologically, which doesn't help either.

However, I've just won a bid on eBay for his title "Steam - The Mystic Harmony", which hopefully will have more illustrations.

 

[Calthrop]

Just ordered a copy - only £3 (with free postage!) on eBay. Will let you know what I think.

Just started reading Dickinson's book, mentioned in post #85. Think this might be a Marmite-type of work; I don't like Marmite.

Three chapters in and I'm already getting irritated. The author likes to use ten words when two or three will suffice. I know it's easy to go off on a tangent, along the paths and trackways towards a golden sunset, with clouds scudding across the horizon, but... Help! It's catching! Also, he overuses the exclamation mark. Occasionally it's fine, but please, not so often! Honestly! No, certainly not!

There are some photos to accompany the text and are well reproduced. However, the author often explains how such-and-such a photo was taken, but it's not included in the book. So frustrating! Yes, really!

I hope it gets better. Yes!

A week or so later....

Haven't given up on the book yet! There are, actually, some very interesting sections when he worked as a porter/carriage cleaner at the main stations in Leicester during his school/uni holidays. I don't recall those aspects of railway life ever having been written about before. There are still parts which grate though, especially when he's always maligning mere trainspotters. Also, as already mentioned, he refers to photos in great detail which are not reproduced in the book. The selection of photos are also not arranged chronologically, which doesn't help either.

However, I've just won a bid on eBay for his title "Steam - The Mystic Harmony", which hopefully will have more illustrations.

@Western Sunset: I must apologise -- I was of course aware of your initial 29/1 posting (the one line, "Just ordered a copy... will let you know what I think".) There then came on the scene, a present-day feature of these Forums which drives me mad -- if one makes a post, and then follows it up with another, with no post from anyone else intervening: unless one's follow-up post is made at least seven days after the initial one; the follow-up post is auto-merged with the initial one -- and there is thus no way for people looking at the "index of threads", to know that anything has been added to the thread, since one's initial post; so they don't log on to the thread ! I've fallen into that error: have discovered your follow-up, above, two-weeks-and-some late -- and only because I was contemplating making a fresh post on the thread, about a completely different subject; and therefore logged on.

Re your "Marmite" comment -- I find applicable to Mr. Dickinson's work, another food-related figure of speech: the curate's famous comment on his egg...
Unlike yourself, I found little problem with his writing style: I'm maybe rather undiscriminating there -- so long as an author is essentially literate, and doesn't knock himself out trying to be ever-so-ever-so-clever, I'm usually happy enough. And (just me) I tend not to put a great deal of importance on the photographic aspect of the hobby, as a whole.

The author's recounting his "vacation / casual" railway employment is indeed most interesting; a special attraction for me, being the part of it involving Leicester Belgrave Road station as was -- have always been fascinated by that whole, seeming to me mildly dotty, Great Northern / LNW secondary (tertiary?) system east of Leicester. As said in my previous post, for me the book is fine while the author sticks to railway content. When he goes off onto other themes; well, to be frank, I'm glad that I don't know the bloke personally -- what he comes out with, raises my hackles in several ways. He's clearly a card-carrying member of the "I love me -- who do you love?" club; and big on, as you say, maligning numerous folk who are not like him -- among them trainspotters who are not in his style thereof.

Hope you've been enjoying Mystic Harmony. As touched on in my previous post: if Dickinson had not been a Great-Britain-only man (as I've been able to find out for sure, that he is) I think I'd have "held my nose" as regards his non-rail-focused opinions and "airs", and sought out other books by him -- I'm a big fan of foreign railways. Each to their own, of course; and no-one is obliged in any way to cultivate hobby-type interests, which they prefer not to. In A Friend in Steam, Dickinson touches on his having around the mid-1950s, spent a year in France as part of his university languages course, and mentions in passing, a rail-related sight or two encountered in the course of that; also mentions having visited the Irish Republic in his relative youth -- but one finds that railways for him are essentially "GB only". Fair enough, his choice; but mine is, not to pursue further writings by him.

 

[Western Sunset]

"Steam - The Mystic Harmony" popped through the letterbox this very morning. A worthy accompaniment to his previous tome and some of the photography mentioned in that earlier work does appear in "Harmony".

To be honest, I'm enjoying his writing much more than I initially thought, though not always his sentiments. What I feel is missing though, is any sense of humour. Anyway, thank you "Calthrop" for pointing me in his direction.

There are some errors though in both books; incorrect captions and jumbled-up memories. I've just emailed the publisher as the author asks if anyone can solve a problem; he wasn't sure whether his mind was playing tricks about something. I think I can! (Reasonable use of the exclamation mark I feel there). He'd be 86 now, so hopefully still around...

Will let you know what transpires.

 

[Calthrop]

As of about a year and a half ago, Mr. D. was still with us; but in very poor physical health -- matters of paralysis. I wrote to him c/o the publisher, enquiring politely as to whether his second and third books contained any material about railways beyond Great Britain. Received a very nice reply -- written by his wife, owing to his infirmities' making it very difficult for him to, himself, set anything down in writing; but passing on his response: viz. that he has always essentially limited his railway enthusiasm to this island. In this correspondence, there was mention of his having contemplated a fourth British-steam book; but it was strongly implied that the ill-health factor was making that look unlikely.

I agree: when senses of humour were being handed out, the gentleman would pretty much seem to have been occupied elsewhere. His career was that of schoolmaster -- rising in the end, I think, to headmastership. In my experience: while many schoolmasters definitely possess senses of humour (sometimes, desperately corny ones); there are certainly a fair number who would seem conspicuously not to -- and our author friend would indeed seem to fall in that category. It's not hard to see a link between his job; and the lecturing and chiding tone which he often takes when he gets off the subject of locomotives and railways, and his apparent hyper-conviction of his own "rightness and righteousness in all things". But he does, for sure, furnish a lot of good stuff when he's not in "preachy mode".

 

[Albaman]

The thread on another section of the Forum on the types of DMU used between Manchester and Blackpool promoted me to mention here one of my all time favourite railway books.

It is part of the series published by Foxline under the general title" Scenes from the Past 26 - Journey by Excursion Train to/from East Lancashire ".

The book I shall refer to here is Part 4 of the series and covers the route from Blackpool Central to Preston via St Annes, Lytham etc. ( other editions cover the lines from Blackpool North/Fleetwood and another the Marton line ). The reason I chose this one is that in 1966 and 1967 our family holiday was in St.Annes and whilst this was after the period when the railways around Blackpool were at their peak, it does bring back memories of my visit to the area.

There are several reasons why I find this book and the others in the series so appealing. Basically, these books combine the observations ( and excellent black and white photos ) of local railway enthusiasts with extensive details of the railway infrastructure (both the track layouts and buildings ) and , finally, they provide a very accurate ( in my opinion ) depiction of holidays ( for some people ) in the UK in the fifties and early sixties.

The quality of the photographs is very good and includes detailed desciptions of several stations, for example , one is of the extensive booking hall at St. Annes complete with platform ticket machine. Another aspect of life which is long gone, are photos of trains organised by companies to give their employees a day out.

In part 5 of the series , mention is made of part 6 which would cover the period in the late sixties and finish with the end of BR main line steam in 1968. However, part 5 was published in 2005 so I fear there will no subsequent editions.

I hope my brevity is not a dis-service to these excellent books which I would highly recommend.