NEW BOOKS as reviewed by Tony Wright
LONDON’S HISTORIC RAILWAY TERMINAL STATIONS, by Geoff Swain, Pen and Sword. PRICE: £30.00
Two from Pen and Sword this month – I’ve never encountered such a prolific publisher. As well as this and the one on South Wales reviewed, there are volumes on The Chester and Holyhead Railway, Railway Request Stops, The Snowdon Mountain Railway, Midland Railway and LMS 4-4-0s, Railways and Industries in North Wales & Deeside, Unfinished Lines, London’s Buses 1979 – 1994 and Midland Red in Retrospect. This is on top of others from the last few months, most of which can only be mentioned in passing. I found the recent book on London’s Underground from the same publisher incredibly interesting. The same can be said about this one, too. The photographs show the stations as they are today in the main, with just a few historic shots. And, what marvellous stations (in the main) they are now. My first encounters with London’s termini, other than seeing the fantastic trains, were that of not being very impressed. They were dirty and jumbled, and/or in the process of being rebuilt. Euston was just starting being rebuilt and Cannon Street’s great roof was in the process of being dismantled.
Thankfully, as is was not built in 1930, certainly not in rebuilt form, and, though the writer clearly loves the effusive praise for the class is of little relevance in my view. Whether the ‘Deltics’ would have been so potent on only six cylinders per engine is very unlikely – they had 18 – and the electric locomotive seen on page 176 at Liverpool Street is a Class 90, not a Class 900. The ‘Gresley teak-bodied bow-ended parcels van’ seen on page 183 is a Corridor Brake Third, with passenger accommodation. The latter points raised, this should not take away from the real enjoyment in this book. In fact, I recommend the use of it as a guide, because these stations really are worth seeing now.
