West Country Railway History Vol 1 West country By Dav

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This book, now in, its fifth, revised edition, has quite a history. It has proved to be a pioneer work in a number of ways. It was of course the first in the 'Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain' series, of which eleven other volumes have now been published. A further three remain to be published in the next few years; the whole scheme thus spans a quarter of a century. Complete coverage could not be rushed: the amount of research and distillation involved is far beyond that needed for most railway books. The series has heralded a new kind of railway history, putting the railways against the general historical background, telling not only how they were built and run, but also for what purpose and with what results. The books have indeed become indispensable local history for their own regions.

The first volumes were published by Phoenix House, who also published the comparable canal series, 'The Canals of the British Isles', edited by Charles Hadfield and now complete. It was as editors of these two series that he and I first met and later founded David & Charles, which ultimately took over both series. In a sense, then, this was a David & Charles book born in the same year as the company David & Charles (though it had been written two years earlier, publication being delayed by a printing strike).

That there has been a longer gap between the last two printings than between the earlier ones is due partly to pressure of work and then the feeling that it would be pleasant to produce a twenty-first birthday edition. As in earlier revisions, much has had to be changed, though the basic work remains that of the first edition (completed in 1938) plus the 1973 complete reset. Except where otherwise indicated, 'the present' means 198o, but I have deliberately left the three postscripts added for the 1963, 1966 and 1973 editions, since they seemed to carry a message in their own right, and I have added a similar note for 1980. Long ago though it may seem that steam locomotives first chugged into West Country valleys, it is interesting to reflect that roughly a seventh of railway history has happened since the book was first written. As 1958 did indeed prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of railways in South West England, I have left in many of the original points of comparison, labelling them as being of 1958 vintage.

The bibliography of this edition inevitably includes quite a few titles published by David & Charles from beside the railway at Newton Abbot. At first we occupied the offices over the station, when the space was vacated by the running and maintenance headquarters for the Western Region west of Taunton, as part of an exercise to fill up the new skyscraper block at Plymouth station. Now we occupy a new building on the site of Railway Cottages, which were badly damaged in an air raid, and warehouse in the adjoining former carriage and wagon repair sheds.

Perhaps I might be excused for adding that, since the last edition was published, I have written two works which explore certain aspects in greater detail. The Great Way West is subtitled The History and Romance of the Great Western's Route to the West, and might be described as a lavish pictorial handbook to the Paddington-Penzance route. The Country Railway evokes the days when everyone and everything going any distance within Britain did so by train, and of course covers the whole country, but many of the examples arc drawn from the South West.

And so, once more, into the story ...

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