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RICHARD DERRY with Ian Sixsmith
By John Nicholas and George Reeve
OUT NOW!
Usual ‘Book Of’ format, with comprehensive history, photographs, every detail variation and change, works histories. The nation’s favourite 4-4-0, a splendid Victorian design modernised by the Southern and best remembered for a protracted final fling on the ‘Withered Arm’ west of Exeter, out across Dartmoor to the sea at Padstow. Recently issued by Hornby as one of the firm’s superlatively detailed models; the thousands of OO enthusiasts out there who bought one can hardly wait to get started on customising them using this book.
First proposals for a central main railway line from London to the port of Falmouth through Salisbury and Exeter came in the 1830s, and the first section as far as Basingstoke was opened in 1840 as part of the London & Southampton Railway, which in line with its plans for expansion soon became the London & South Western Railway. The Bishopstoke to Salisbury Milford branch opened in 1847 but the route from London to Salisbury was indirect, so a direct Basingstoke to Salisbury line was promoted and after delays following the Railway Mania the single track branch from Basingstoke to Andover was opened in 1854, extended to Salisbury Milford in 1857, and then to Salisbury Fisherton in 1859. The Basingstoke & Salisbury Railway is the subject of Part One.
The Salisbury & Yeovil line was the central part of the Southern’s Main Line to the West. Promoted and built by an independent local company, its stations were well placed for the centres of Salisbury, Tisbury, Gillingham, Sherborne and Yeovil. The station at the small village of Templecombe prospered as a junction with the Somerset & Dorset line, the route for much freight traffic to and from the west. Here coal, stone, manufactured goods, milk and Burton beer from the Midland line was transferred. Going north went cider from Whimple, rabbits from Dartmoor, fruit and flowers from the Tamar Valley and watercress from Hampshire. The South Western worked and later bought the line, at a very high price, and fast trains from Waterloo provided good services for both business and holiday passengers. Although Beeching cuts reduced the line’s status to little more than a single track byway, today it provides a good and frequent service to London. Part One covered Basingstoke to Salisbury whilst Part Three will deal with the route onwards from Yeovil to Exeter.
The characteristic feature of this main line is illustrated by station and signal box names - Yeovil Junction, Chard Junction, Axminster (Junction for Lyme Regis), Seaton Junction, Sidmouth Junction and Exmouth Junction. Principal Waterloo expresses often passed towns like Crewkerne, Axminster and Honiton, but then stopped at junction stations in almost uninhabited countryside. This feature of six branch line junctions in less than 50 miles was on the one hand fascinating for railway enthusiasts, and on the other hand frustrating for passengers travelling to and from towns and villages away from the main line, particularly after the Beeching closures.
The Okehampton line from Exeter was a main line railway some sixty miles in length which for almost a century provided an alternative route to Plymouth. It passed through spectacular countryside as well as the important market town of Tavistock which boasted Sir Francis Drake as one of its notable residents. This book gives a detailed account of all aspects of the line between Cowley Bridge and Devonport Junctions, together with some background of the railway beyond at Exeter and Plymouth. A full description of the line including maps, track and signalling diagrams and many photographs, mostly previously unpublished, complete we hope, a definitive account of THE OKEHAMPTON LINE.
TEMPORARILY OUT OF PRINT - PLEASE ENQUIRE
The Lyme Regis branch line extended for 6¾ miles from Axminster in Devon to the historic town of Lyme Regis, just inside the western end of Dorset. The railway meandered and climbed through beautiful scenery and, to cap it all, for almost thirty years the workings were monopolised by the last three of the charismatic Adams Radial Tanks. What more could any branch line enthusiast possibly hope for?
The Somerset & Dorset Railway was a wonderfully charismatic and highly photogenic line, the 71½-mile journey from Bath to Bournemouth involving a slog over the rugged Mendip Hills on gradients of up to 1 in 50, then a dash along the beautiful Stour Valley through picture-book-perfect North Dorset. And then there was the S&D’s own ‘withered arm’ – the oft-forgotten branch to Glastonbury, Highbridge and Burnham, which had its own ‘branches off the branch’ to Wells and Bridgwater. A West Country jewel, the S&D has, over the years, justly been the subject of many books, magazine articles, videos and DVDs – and there’s even a 45rpm record knocking about somewhere. So is there room for another addition to the line’s already substantial bibliography? Well, yes – Irwell Press is offering something new.
Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the ‘Withered Arm’ to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D ‘proper’, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And there’s even more… There’s also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures – material which has not been seen in print before.
Long-awaited volume to complete the former Southern Railway ‘big’ passenger classes. Bigger and better than ever with over 200 pages of exhaustive detail and of course a sack full of photographs illustrating every phase of their existence and almost every one of the endless detail variations.
In the last few years we have seen the ‘Book Of’ series of locomotive studies develop into something of a library devoted to more and more of the principal BR express classes. Beyond this a de facto journal has sprung up, in the shape of the Photographic Accompaniments to further celebrate these famous classes. Now it’s the Schools’ turn and once again the purpose is to serve up further photographs for a memorable class. Again, the idea is to accompany, supplement and complement the ‘parent’ volume, The Book of the Schools 4-4-0s. The Southern, like all four pre-Group companies, had a keen eye and ear for publicity and, like its rivals, was not above tweaking dimensions on a new design not for strictly engineering reasons but to get one over the opposition, statistically speaking. The all things to all men and largely meaningless ‘tractive effort’ came in particularly useful. Thus the Nelsons, briefly, could be claimed as the most powerful express engines in the country while the Schools (though here we are on much firmer ground) could be hailed as ‘the most powerful locomotives of their type in the country’. This had the added merit of obscuring the fact that a 4-4-0 for top express work in 1930 could be portrayed, by those of an unkind mien, as something of a retrograde step.
In the latest in the popular ‘Book Of’ locomotive series author Richard Derry returns us to his pet Southern Railway and the remarkable Lord Nelson 4-6-0s. Famous in the 1930s for working express boat trains such as the Golden Arrow and Night Ferry, they were somewhat overshadowed by the Bulleid Pacifics after the war still they continued to run main line expresses right into the 1960s. All were named after celebrated British Naval Heroes Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and the other great Sea Dogs who saw off the Spanish, French and Dutch over hundreds of years of glorious Empire. October 21st is Trafalgar Day and the 200th Anniversary of Nelson’s brilliant victory – publication is scheduled to coincide with the great day.
Following on from Richard Derry's book on the Lord Nelson 4-6-0s we have pleasure in producing another of the very popular Photographic Accompaniments. All new photos and something all Southern fans must have! All the Lord Nelson's were named after celebrated British Naval Heroes – Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and the other great Sea Dogs who saw off the Spanish, French and Dutch over hundreds of years of glorious Empire. October 21st is Trafalgar Day and the 200th Anniversary of Nelson’s brilliant victory.Series. Don't forget to buy the main book too!
Little that is wholly new remains to be said concerning any major class of British steam locomotive, though of course there is still a lot to celebrate and illustrate. A similar point was made in the five preceding books of this series. The Book of the BR Standards, The Book of the Coronation Pacifics, The Book of the Royal Scots, The Book of the Princess Royal Pacifics and the Book of the Merchant Navy Pacifics. There are always a few nuggets to be had, and one or two particularly glistening ones have been introduced to the story of the West Country and Battle of Britain Pacifics.d for the third time. AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 2008
A look at the railways of one of the South West’s most attractive corners, though it ranges a little beyond the true geographical confines. The book devotes a separate section to each of the area’s five railway lines, Barnstaple - Ilfracombe, Barnstaple - Taunton, Taunton - Minehead, Lynton and Barnstaple and the ancient West Somerset Mineral Railway. Considerable primary source research has been undertaken in a effort to come up with something a little different and it is hoped that the end result provides a concise, and occasionally offbeat, insight into railway operations in West Somerset and North Devon.
