Railway Stations of Britain by J A Gordon H Coltas Hard cover Photos

$17.01

RailroadTreasures offers the following item:

INTRODUCTION

The following pages contain illustrations of a number of railway stations, past and present, from a wide variety of locations in England, Scotland, and Wales together with brief details relating to them.

Of each station, a whole book saturated with detailed information could be written, but the purpose of this book is to pause briefly at each station, to sample a few facts and to move along quickly to the next stop. However, brevity should not outweigh the need to establish a pattern of information by which any station may be compared with another. Accordingly, there will be reference to the particular Railway Company or Companies mainly responsible for the development of the station prior to the amalgamation and absorption into four group companies, of 123 separate railway companies on 1st January, 1923. There will be reference also to the services handled by each stateion, e.g. passenger & parcels, goods, livestock, horse boxes & prize cattle vans, etc. However, services will be dealt with station by station by exception rather than introducing a separate list for each station.

Although not the birthplace of railways, London naturally, as the capitol city, played a most important part in the railway scene and accordingly each station in this book, with one exception for its special use, is related to London by mileage and normal available route(s) of yesteryear.

It is not uncommon for stations to be referred to by other than their official titles. As the general public always appears to favour station names which roll more readily off the tongue, they frequently achieve this by transposing part or parts of the official name, sometimes the deletion of one or more words has the desired effect. When a station's name is officially changed, it can be many years before its new title is acceptable to the majority of its users, in fact, mentioned later in this book is Deansgate Station which has undergone two changes of name, the first over a half century ago. Nevertheless, many of its commuters still refer to it by its original name of "Knott Mill" - rarely is this likely to raise an eyebrow from booking office clerks around the Manchester area but there is no doubt that this would cause problems in booking offices elsewhere. In view of the foregoing, all stations referred to are in a form which would be immediately identifiable to any employee of British Rail.

The stations in this book have all been photographed by the author over a period of five years and this has involved travel amounting to several thousands of miles mainly by rail. In a handful of cases, there was no alternative but to photograph a station whilst leaning out of a carriage window and often when travelling at speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour.

Unfortunately, the decline of many fine station buildings throughout the U.K. began almost four decades ago during the 1939/45 war when maintenance, cleaning, etc. was carried out infrequently. Later came widespread closures of stations, demolition of their buildings and the lifting of track, in an effort to make the railways show a profit by reducing unprofitable routes. In more recent years, vandalism has accounted for the need to remove many station building and "Pay Trains" have brought about the demotion of large numbers of once well staffed station to unnamed halts.

Whilst it is inevitable that many of the remaining fine stations will not escape the dead sentence, it is earnestly hoped that the energies of the growing numbers of responsible and active preservationists will be directed to the task of obtaining reprieves wherever possible.

All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.

Shipping charges

Postage rates quoted are for shipments to the US only. Ebay Global shipping charges are shown. These items are shipped to Kentucky and then ebay ships them to you. Ebay collects the shipping and customs / import fees. For direct postage rates to these countries, send me an email. Shipping to Canada and other countries varies by weight.

Payment options

Payment must be received within 10 days. Paypal is accepted.

Terms and conditions

All sales are final. Returns accepted if item is not as described. Contact us first. No warranty is stated or implied. Please e-mail us with any questions before bidding.

Thanks for looking at our items.