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The Main Line & Branches.

If ever a line could be called an evergreen favourite it is the Somerset & Dorset, so quintessentially English in its achingly beautiful settings, its charming stations and the blasting hill climbing efforts of its steam locomotives. All of it unsullied by diesels right up to its final demise in 1966.

It was a line like no other, by turns a dozing branch, by turns a main line with double headed named expresses running the length of the country. It is no wonder that so many volumes have been devoted to it though it has probably never been covered photographically to this extent, in the detail of its buildings and track – getting on for 600 photographs reveal the intricacies and grandeur of the line as never before, together with finely drawn diagrams of every station, yard and junction.

The author worked on the footplate on the Southern Region in the South West and the S&D has been close to his heart ever since. The plans are an especially useful feature: ‘Up’ is Broadstone to Bath and Evercreech Junction to Highbridge, ‘Down’ is Bath to Broadstone and Highbridge to Evercreech Junction. Pause for breath... ‘Down’ S&D trains from Broadstone to Bournemouth became ‘Up’ trains on the Southern. S&D trains were ‘Down’ leaving Bournemouth West until reaching Broadstone upon which they became ‘Up’ on joining the S&D!

As we say, it was a line like no other!

Author: Derek Phillips
First published: July 2021
Cover: Hardback, mono throughout , 336-pages approx pages
ISBN: 978-1-911262-32-0
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Third in a series which has but one simple aim, to use top quality photographs reproduced at the largest possible size to celebrate some of the best-loved steam classes. Full-page shots are presented in a landscape format and are backed up by comprehensive captions.

Although the engines were in service for under two decades and generally struggled to make headway against the pre-nationalisation express classes, the BR Standard Pacifics did have a significant impact in one part of the country, the Britannias revolutionising express services on the former Great Eastern lines out of Liverpool Street. All of them ended up in the North West where they saw out their final years up to the end of steam.

The emphasis throughout is on the engines in service and the book has been arranged in chapters in chronological order starting with the batches of each class as built. The final chapters show the engines at work in the late 1950s and 1960s over the principal routes where they were used. All engines in each class are covered at least once.

Author: Jon Jennison
First published: Mid-May 2021
Cover: Hardback , 144pp pages
ISBN: 978-1-911262-41-1
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Latest in the ‘Book Of’ series, presenting a comprehensive history and full sequence of works visits together with several photographs of every individual engine. ‘A handsome locomotive, firmly in the Gresley tradition of handsome designs’ and that is certainly true of the LNER B17 4-6-0s. ‘Good engineering should look good, and Gresley never set his hand to a design which looked less than very good.’ Again certainly true.

The engines had a relatively brief time at the forefront of express working, mainly on the Great Eastern and Great Central Sections and eventually all were concentrated at former GE depots. This rendered many of them remote from enthusiast eyes though fortunately the selection of one for Royal trains meant they came to be closely observed indeed. The Queen preferred to travel from Kings Cross to Sandringham, avoiding all the ceremony necessary when she entered the City of London, wherein lay Liverpool Street, the terminus otherwise considered the natural setting-out point for Kings Lynn and the Royal Estate. A B17, later rebuilt like ten others into B2 form was kept at Cambridge for the Royal workings and when not so engaged visited Kings Cross daily, most notably on the Cambridge ‘beer trains’ which could get a bit raucous.

Their names were large estates in the LNER countryside and on reading, the list it feels like an ancient copy of Debrett’s. In 1935 naming policy changed abruptly and the last 25 were named after prominent football clubs in areas served by the LNER. Thus the engines got both the nickname ‘Sandies’ (after the first one, SANDRINGHAM) and ‘Footballers’.

Author: Peter J. Coster C.Eng, MICE, MCIT
First published: 26 May 2021
Cover: Hardback , 200 pages
ISBN: 978-1-911262-31-2
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Third in a series to record in colour and black and white the prototype origins and production lives of the first British Railways diesel locomotives, from halting beginnings in the 1950s to (sometimes) premature ends.

The introductory pages cover the conception, design and construction in the 1950s and are necessarily in black and white. The remainder of the volume illustrates the locomotives throughout their subsequent working lives through to the 1970s, in colour. Comprehensive text, extensive captions, technical data, life histories throughout.

None of the many 'Diesel Dawns' of our times has been investigated, evaluated, celebrated, excoriated, praised and derided, more comprehensively in (often) more partisan ways, than that of the Western Region diesel hydraulics.

The various Warships were the first. British Railways Western Region built their own at Swindon (Diesel Dawn 2) and the venerable British private locomotive firm North British of Glasgow built the rest. The firm was responsible for two types, in fact, the earlier, heavy twelve wheel D600s (only five of these, to considerable relief in some quarters) which a BR Board largely foisted on the Western Region and thirty-three more in the D800 series which were more or less indistinguishable from the earlier Swindon locomotives detailed in Diesel Dawn 2. These North British D833-D865) Warships worked turn and turn about with their Swindon brethren on express passenger trains and then freights throughout the 1960s untill their somewhat premature withdrawal in the early 1970s.

Author: Gavin Glenister & John Jennison
First published: May 2021
Cover: Softback
ISBN: 978-1-911639-65-7
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Available from the publisher or selected W H Smith, Sainsburys, Tescos, Asda and Waitrose High Street shops.

Second in a series to record in colour and black and white the prototype origins and production lives of the first British Railways diesel locomotives, from halting beginnings in the 1950s to (sometimes) premature ends. The introductory pages cover the conception, design and construction in the 1950s and are necessarily in black and white. The remainder of the volume illustrates the locomotives throughout their subsequent working lives through to the 1970s, in colour. Comprehensive text, extensive captions, technical data, life histories throughout.

None of the many 'Diesel Dawns' of our times has been investigated, evaluated, celebrated, excoriated, praised and derided, more comprehensively in (often) more partisan ways, than that of the Western Region diesel hydraulics. The startling first impression these Swindon Warships made when they burst upon a steam-dominated railway in 1958 can hardly be exaggerated. Powerful, fast and above all lightweight, THIS was the Type 4 that the Western Region had wanted and fought so hard to get. Sparkling clean, in an elegant livery with stirring red and silver nameplates, they were glamorous, mysterious even, with that striking sloping front and subtle curves, unhindered by design clutter.

This second Diesel Dawn deals with the thirty-eight Warships built from 1958. The North British version which came a couple of years later involved a different story altogether, to be related in Diesel Dawn No.3..

Author: Gavin Glenister & John Jennison
First published: March 2021
Cover: Softback
ISBN: 978-1911639-64-0
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This concluding volume in the series casts an even wider net across Tom Williams' unique body of colour work captured between 1954 and 1964. Predictably, there are the inevitable shots of Kings attacking Hatton Bank, Tom's favourite local vantage point, plus a variety of other favoured locations throughout the counties surrounding his native Warwickshire, but there are also windows into his travels far and wide.

Visits, for example, to the ex-Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, the East Coast Main Line and of course, the seductive but challenging contours of North Devon. A proportion of the most iconic images included have been selected, not just for their documentary, historic importance, but also for their intrinsic artistic qualities: many evoking a tangible sense of 'being there'.

Nevertheless, as with the previous volumes, the emphasis remains firmly on presenting detailed, high quality full-page colour plates, accompanied by as much comprehensive supporting information as possible.

Author: Owen & Phillip Williams with an introduction by Brian England.
First published: 28th. February 2021
Cover: Hardback , 128 pages
ISBN: ISBN 978-1-911262-30-5
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The LMS employed innumerable 2-6-4Ts, evolving from parallel boiler Fowler engines through updated Stanier taper boiler versions through to Fairburn’s final development. Between them they amounted to over 600 in total.

The first Stanier engines were wholly different in having three cylinders; moreover they were (most unusually) restricted to one particular stretch of line. Apart from the war years when they were all temporarily transferred away, they could always be found working passenger services over the former London Tilbury & Southend system from Fenchurch Street to Southend and Shoeburyness, until ousted by electrification in 1962.

As the information board alongside the preserved 2500 in the National Railway Museum at York pronounces: ‘Possibly the finest suburban tank engines that ran in this country’.

Author: John Jennison
First published: 30th.November 2020
Cover: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-911262-38-1
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ISBN 978-1-911262-39-8

Latest in the longstanding ‘Book Of’ series, in FIVE PARTS to adequately cover the vast number of locomotives involved.

In this third part are the locomotives that formed the first tranche of the 8Fs as a British ‘War Locomotive’ built at various works to Government edict. As the title indicates and as might be expected, they were built by the LMS but the first Swindon examples also began to emerge, from 8400 onwards.

Part One detailed those 8Fs built by/for the LMS for its own use – 8000-8125 in the 1930s with no thought then of them becoming a British ‘war locomotive’ though indeed some did go abroad.

Part Two concerns firstly those engines built by Crewe and North British for the LMS, 8126-8225 which never went abroad and secondly the locos built at Ministry of Supply/War Department behest and loaned to the LMS/GWR, 8226-8297.

The life, times and adventures of each (sometimes quite exotic in the case of the latter) is recorded under the individual loco, as with previous ‘Books Of’...

Author: By Ian Sixsmith & Richard Derry
First published: 30th.November 2020
Cover: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-911262-39-8
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Second in a series which has but a simple aim, to use top quality photographs reproduced at the largest possible size to celebrate some of the best-loved steam classes. Full-page shots are presented in a landscape format and are backed up by comprehensive captions.

A class first emerging from Doncaster Works in 1922, the non-streamlined Pacifics were the LNER’s principal express passenger engines for more than a decade. The design underwent continuous development during its early years, particularly the introduction of long-travel valve gear and higher pressure boilers in the transformation from A1 to A3 class. Although put into the shade from the mid-1930s by the streamlined A4s they remained the backbone of the LNER passenger fleet, but were ousted from many of their former duties after the second World war as new Thompson and Peppercorn Pacifics were built. However, the A3s were to enjoy a real Indian Summer from the late 1950s, their performance transformed by the fitting of Kylchap double chimneys.

Author: Jon Jennison
First published: 10th.November 2020
Cover: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-911262-40-4
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A personal colour odyssey by an author captivated by steam, like most of us, at an early, highly impressionable age and in his case the introduction was grander than most – the Royal Train passing through Henley-in-Arden in April 1950 headed, memorably by two Castles.

The inevitable induction into the local band of spotters followed, then trips by bicycle to nearby main lines at Hatton and Honeybourne and finally steam tours as pocket money came to be bolstered by Saturday and school holiday jobs.

Sympathetic parents helped, as a lively text reveals: "I recall an occasion when I was in Bristol with my mother for some reason I cannot now remember but I badgered her to let me visit Bath Road engine shed. I must have been about twelve and the foreman arranged for someone to show me round but told my mother that it was considered to be bad luck for women to be in the shed. Whether or not this was a joke, she sat in the mess nursing a mug of engineman’s tea while I noted down the numbers of the sixty or so locomotives present. It was her one and only shed visit!"

Subsequent maturity and possession of a decent camera allowed a rich harvest of colour portraits of many aspects of Western Region steam working in the 1960s, from filthy lumbering 2-8-0s, to fussing pannier tanks and gleaming Kings and Castles.

Author: Terence Dorrity
First published: 10th.November 2020

ISBN: ISBN 978-1-911262-37-4
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By John Jennison -

ISBN 978-1-911262-26-8

As the LMS Press Release explained at the time, the newest LMS 2-6-0s, though of small size and light weight, incorporated ‘every modern development which has been found successful on the larger main line types.’ They had self-cleaning smokeboxes, manganese steel axlebox liners, rocking grates and hopper ashpans. Externally, the high running plate and outside cylinders contrasted with the rather ancient looking large diameter chimney. The tender cab and inset tanks were designed for tender-first operation.

The Class 2 moguls and the contemporaneous Class 2 2-6-2Ts were amongst the last new LMS designs and although intended for secondary duties, they incorporated (just like the Press Release said!) all of the refinements developed over the previous decade and honed by Ivatt on his post-war Black Fives. The two classes were designed together, sharing as many components as possible, using the same boiler, and they were very much complementary.

The Book of the Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0s as you’d expect follows the series customary format; detailed essay as to provenance, development, historical content, tables of works histories and allocations, photographs of every loco.

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By John Jennison -

ISBN 978-1-911262-34-3

The Ivatt Class 2 tanks and moguls were amongst the last new LMS designs and although intended for secondary duties to replace a variety of ancient pre-grouping specimens, they incorporated all of the refinements developed over the previous decade and honed by Ivatt on his post-war Black Fives.

The two classes were developed together, using the same boiler, sharing as many components as possible and they were very much complementary. Operationally, they worked mostly in different areas and on different duties and hence the story of the tender version is covered separately in the Book of the Ivatt 2-6-0s.

There was no class that was so immediately and universally accepted by enginemen. Not only did they welcome both the tender and tank versions with open arms, "they worshipped the very rails they stood on".

The 2-6-2Ts were really the last small tank locomotive designed for Britain’s railways; the BR Standard Class 2 in the 84000 series being merely a slightly modified version. Their light axle loading meant that they could go almost anywhere on the system and they certainly did that. They operated throughout the Southern Region, from Kent to Cornwall, as well as almost everywhere on their native LMS; the only area where they did not work at all was Scotland.

Complements the immediately preceding Book of the Ivatt 2-6-0s.

Author: John Jennison
First published: May/June 2020
Cover: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-911262-34-3
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