CHRISTMAS OFF THE SHELF SPECIAL
The Times Golden Years of Rail Travel
By Julian Holland (hardback, Times Books/Harper Collins, 272pp, £30, ISBN 9780008323752).
THE very attractive and lavishly-illustrated coffee-table A4 size volume celebrates the decades when rail travel was considered to be far and away the best, if not the only, way to travel across the country.
Drawing on a wealth of archive photographs and colour illustrations, it captures the spirit and atmosphere of express passenger and luxury train travel in the pre-Grouping period from late Victorian times, the ‘Big Four’and the great rivalries which spawned the likes of Coronation and Mallard, and the BR era from 1948-1994.
Most of these sections are divided into short articles on legendary named trains like the ‘Pines Express, the‘Brighton Belle’ and the‘Yorkshire Pullman’.
The ninth book written by Julian for Harper Collins, its greatest achievement is to rekindle our pride in the evolution of our national railway network. That surely leads to a better appreciation of what charter operators are achieving on the main line today, capturing the glories of the past which will never be forgotten. In short, every page starts at inspirational and goes up from there.
RELIVING A GREAT AGE OF OPTIMISM
The Remarkable Jim Crebbin and His Experimental Locomotives
By Roger Backhouse (softback, Society of Model and Experimental Engineers, Marshall House, 28 Wanless Road, London, SE24 0HW www.sm-ee. co.uk email booksales@sm-ee.co.uk 82pp, £14, ISBN 9781527245327).
ONE of the finest events in the sector in 2019 has been the Brass, Steel and Fire exhibition at the National Railway Museum in York. It majors in on early live steam model locomotives – some of which were no less than demonstrators which led to the building of early steam locomotives like the Middleton Railway’s Salamanca of 1812.
The exhibition includes Jim Crebbin’s locomotive Cosmo Bonsor, and this A4 volume describes why it is so important in the sphere of model engineering.
Crebbin travelled across Europe and knew great locomotive engineers like Churchward, Stanier and Gresley – he even helped the former introduce the French de Glehn compounds to the GWR, and their
