Martin Shaw
Western Thunderer
Following discussions in the Brendon Hills thread I have now received a copy and had a brief look through it. It isn't nor claims to be a history of the Bishop Auckland to Tebay railway, and is very much an examination of its rise and decline in the years following the second world war when there was a great demand for steel and the transport of raw materials to make it. In two parts, the first 40 or so pages outline the history from 1850 up to 1939, adequate to provide the context of the narrative following, the second part looks at traffic and operations over the route both for freight and passenger workings with the inevitable politically motivated decisions to close the route, even if it just pre dated the good doctor.
Written by a railwayman in what seems to be an engaging way, I didn't see any obvious grammatical horrors and the little text I have read scans well. It's strength is of course the superb collection of photographs taken mainly in the 50's for which we owe the photographers a great deal, very well reproduced they alone should sell the book. There is even a small selection of colour images which appeal to me greatly.
Well produced by Lightmoor to their usual standards and a neatly sewn binding by the usual printers in Poland in my view this is a nice book.
The caveats, well nothings perfect, the lack of a dust jacket means the spine will fade quickly and inevitably being cream and orange. The front cover design is in my view fussy, the contrived use of the BR totem outline adds nothing and the title could have been simplified whilst retaining the meaning. The top of each page has a bordered outline inside which is the page number and either the chapter heading or the book title. This is I suppose fair enough but it does make the page layout heavy looking. It's unnecessary since I can still manage to remember the book I am holding and reading.
These are pretty minor matters and perhaps reflect my own thoughts too much and beyond that I can recommend this unreservedly.
Martin
Written by a railwayman in what seems to be an engaging way, I didn't see any obvious grammatical horrors and the little text I have read scans well. It's strength is of course the superb collection of photographs taken mainly in the 50's for which we owe the photographers a great deal, very well reproduced they alone should sell the book. There is even a small selection of colour images which appeal to me greatly.
Well produced by Lightmoor to their usual standards and a neatly sewn binding by the usual printers in Poland in my view this is a nice book.
The caveats, well nothings perfect, the lack of a dust jacket means the spine will fade quickly and inevitably being cream and orange. The front cover design is in my view fussy, the contrived use of the BR totem outline adds nothing and the title could have been simplified whilst retaining the meaning. The top of each page has a bordered outline inside which is the page number and either the chapter heading or the book title. This is I suppose fair enough but it does make the page layout heavy looking. It's unnecessary since I can still manage to remember the book I am holding and reading.
These are pretty minor matters and perhaps reflect my own thoughts too much and beyond that I can recommend this unreservedly.
Martin
