RAILWAY BYLINES ANNUAL NO 2 ISBN 9781871608922

RAILWAY BYLINES ANNUAL NO.2 ISBN 9781871608922

by: Martin Smith

Welcome to the second RAILWAY BYLINES ANNUAL, our latest king-size dip into what might be termed the “Minor Railways Selection Box”. Regular readers of RAILWAY BYLINES magazine – our monthly journal - will know the sort of things to expect during the course of the next ninety-odd pages: rural branch lines, industrial systems, narrow gauge, and other unjustly overlooked aspects of Britain's railway network. One advantage of the “Annual” format is that we can include articles which are a little too lengthy for an ordinary edition of the magazine. Such is the case with the Tees Valley Railway – the formal title of the branch line from Barnard Castle to Middleton-in-Teesdale – which is one of the principal subjects in this tome. As our researches unearthed all sorts of goodies, and as the branch has never been the subject of a detailed article in the railway press (at least, to the best of our knowledge), we felt that a longer feature was justifiable as it would enable us to present much that is “new” to most readers. Or so we hope! We have also expended much ink on a sort of double whammy, which deals with, not one, but two collieries in Yorkshire – Emley Moor and Park Mill Collieries. These two pits were within a mile and a half of each other, near the BR branch line to Clayton West, and the full story is brought to you by one of our regular contributors, Adrian Booth. Young Mr Booth told us that he made several special trips to the two collieries at all times of year, in all winds and weathers, to study and record the scene. But we weren't altogether convinced by his tales of devotion to duty, as Emley Moor and Park Mill collieries aren't a million miles from Huddersfield, and Mr B just happens to be a keen Huddersfield Town supporter. Suspicious souls that we are, we looked through old Huddersfield Town fixture lists and, as we half expected, every one of Mr B's visits to Emley Moor and Park Mill collieries on a Saturday morning just happened to coincide with Huddersfield having a home game in the afternoon. You've been rumbled, young man………… The other “well filled” portion of our selection box deals with LMS Sentinels. In his article, Bill Aves deals in his usual thorough manner with the LMS's Sentinel shunting locomotives and steam railcars. Once again, we smugly consider that this feature treads fairly new ground, as not much has previously been said in the railway press about these machines, especially the activities of the railcars. Elsewhere in these pages, we try to provide something for everybody, We have BR and non-BR, standard gauge and narrow gauge, ancient and modern, the pretty and the functional, locomotives and infrastructure. All in all, it's a sort of railway version of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. We hope you like what's on offer. If you enjoy our rummage through the bits that other railway magazines don't reach, remember that there is a 56 page helping of this sort of fare every single month in RAILWAY BYLINES magazine.

Book 217mm x 304mm

Casebound

96 Pages

Approx, 100 B&W Photographs