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Narrow Gauge Railways of The British Isles Whitehouse & Snell w dust jacket
Narrow Gauge Railways Of The British Isles By PB Whitehouse and JB Snell
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Copyright 1984 BOOK Club Associates
140 black and white photographs, 16 maps. 160 Pages Indexed
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements6
Preface7
Prologue9
1 Narrow-Gauge Origins30
2 England, Scotland, and the Isle of Man37
3 Wales65
4 Ireland91
5 Locomotive Development117
Appendix156
Bibliography158
Index159
With 140 black and white photographs and 16 maps.
PREFACE
In these Islands the narrow gauge railway, as envisaged by its progenitors, is now long dead : like most things devised by man, its usefulness was only temporary. Today we live in an age when few schoolboys want to be engine drivers and the romance of the railway has disappeared into a sponge of technology. Railways, except for those which carry vast numbers of commuters or fast impersonal Inter-City expresses, are described as uneconomic in the passenger field: certainly in an age of the motor vehicle with its excellent roads paid for by the state the public and most businesses do not want to use other kinds of rail transport.
In spite of this, maybe because of it, there has been an upsurge of interest in railways as a hobby and the narrow gauge lines have their own share of devotees. The narrow gauge railway was cradled in the mountains of North Wales and its success and survival was due to one thing only - it was in those days economic. Most narrow gauge lines ran through poor and undeveloped countryside, were impecunious in the extreme and, above all, because they were often isolated they were individualistic and became the subjects of folklore. All these factors have built about the narrow gauge a fascination of its own and it was this which led a very small group of people including the authors of this book to be among the few who were in at the start of the modern revival on the Talyllyn Railway in 1951.
Since then railway preservation and its venture into tourism has increased beyond the wildest dreams of those who pioneered the first lines. The man in the street has become narrow gauge conscious - his holiday trips to North Wales, the Isle of Man and the Lake District have seen to that ; while even more has been achieved in standard gauge railway preservation. The success of the pioneer tourist lines has encouraged some to imitate, has dismayed others (who found that the past could not be recreated in every detail) and has surprised everyone. The biggest shock was the discovery that they really were in the railway business and that owning and running a railway is a heavy and relentless responsibility which cannot be declined, for the trains must be kept running. Nothing could run (or did run) without spending money; this meant income was needed. To obtain this from the public it is vital to provide a reliable train service, comfortable stock and safe working practices. There can be no half measures in this field. either a railway captures the traffic it wants (or wanted) or it fails; once there was basically freight, now tourists make the payload. Gone are the 'good old days' (in any case they were infrequently good) and in their place today is a new challenge laced with some pleasure and excitement.
But has this new business succeeded? The answer must be, yes, though as of old the narrow gauge railway of today maintains an uneasy financial equilibrium and must exist on less capital funds and equipment than it would like. On the other side of the scales there is an almost unbelievable determination in the new managements (many of whom are volunteers) to press forward and to succeed. Both authors of this book once asked the question - 'will the next generation come forward with the necessary enthusiasm and love of hard work when their turn comes to take over?' Fortunately once again the answer has been a resounding yes. Even so those who are interested in keeping these historic railways going will have to continue (as did their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers) to look at investment into the future, and even if that future lies in the hands of youth, they too will have to be business-like.
This book has been written to attempt to set out in one volume something both of the ambience and the history of our narrow gauge railways up to the time, a single generation ago, when that new spirit was born. By covering the whole of the British field it cannot go into deep detail on any individual line, but there are many erudite works which can, and do, specialise in particular railways and areas. But if this book rekindles or starts an interest in its subject our labours will have been more than worthwhile.
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