UK or elsewhere Railway Map Book Recommendations

[319321]

My family always say that I am very difficult to buy for, and usually end up getting me some railway book or other among other things.

I am interested in maps, historical maps and the stories behind them. There are a large number of books of railway maps both modern and historical on Amazon, and I was wondering if anyone had any particular recommendations and why?

(Im not someone who trusts Amazon reviews -having experience of blocking chinese spam bots in the past I know that they can get past anything).

 

[30907]

For mainland Europe in reasonable detail, the various national atlases by Schweers und Wall are hard to beat for cartography as well as content. I've not looked at their smaller scale Europe one but Instinct tells me I'd find it frustratingly lacking in detail - someone might prove me wrong. I think the former Thomas Cook folding map has been reissued.

I hesitate to comment on the UK ones, partly lack of knowledge, partly personal bias, but I use Baker for an overview and Trackmaps for layout diagrams.

The old Railway Clearing House maps are nice specimens of cartography too.

 

[EM2]

I like Joe Brown's 'London Railway Atlas' which manages to show every line that has existed in London, alongside the current network. It's very well laid out and very easy to follow.

 

[AndrewE]

The Swiss Railway Atlas (ISBN 3-89494-122-7) is superb and will tempt you to explore. I was given a second-hand copy as a present and (after initial suspicion) have spent hours looking at it and thinking about holidays past - and wondering about some repeat visits.
I gave a friend the Thomas Cook map of Europe for his 50th, but no-one ever took the hint and gave me one...
Happy reading.
A

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I have an ABC Railguide and a 1957 railmap, sadly they have some errors.
I use Project Mapping's full network map whenever possible as it shows all lines by operator, all stations, and many non-Network Rail metro and tram lines.

 

[fergusjbend]

The definitive reference work is Colonel M H Cobb's 'The Railways of Great Britain: A Historical Atlas'. Published by Ian Allen in 2003, in two massive volumes, it has all known public railways superimposed on the old 1 inch OS Map series. At the time I bought my copy it cost £150, but it is now out of print, and if you can find a copy (try ABE), it will set you back £500+. A truly magnificent achievement by the late Colonel, who was awarded a PhD by Cambridge University for his efforts. It is a pity it cannot be made available online.

 

[319321]

@EM2 - This is probably the closest book to what I am looking for in my head - a bit of history and explanation with lots of maps.

@AndrewE - Will take a look at this

@GrimsbyPeter Will take a look at these, but I'm more going for the maps plus the history and some interpretation.

@fergusjbend Definitely looks like an interesting read and was probably a very interesting project! It is a bit beyond what I would feel comfortable asking my family for, given what we usually spend on each other

 

[47271]

Sorry if you know about this already!

Not a book but an online resource, so a free Christmas present to yourself, but you can have gain quite a lot of insight from the maps section of the National Library of Scotland's website (maps.nls.uk) which stores a huge amount of old OS mapping. It has an overlay tool which allows you to fade progressively between, say, the 1950s and the present day in both map and satellite images. So you can see exactly where old railways have been built over for example.

I can't view it properly on my phone just now but I think they have non-Scottish maps on there too. There may be other similar sites out there, nls is just the one that I know.

 

[DelW]

Sorry if you know about this already!

Not a book but an online resource, so a free Christmas present to yourself, but you can have gain quite a lot of insight from the maps section of the National Library of Scotland's website (maps.nls.uk) which stores a huge amount of old OS mapping. It has an overlay tool which allows you to fade progressively between, say, the 1950s and the present day in both map and satellite images. So you can see exactly where old railways have been built over for example.

I can't view it properly on my phone just now but I think they have non-Scottish maps on there too. There may be other similar sites out there, nls is just the one that I know.

That site does indeed have lots of OS maps of England and Wales as well as Scotland, many at large scale (6" to a mile and bigger), and from mid 19th to mid 20th century. It can be a little frustrating to find the exact one you want, simply because there are so many, but it's well worth the effort. Some of the details of old sidings layouts etc. are astonishing to see.