# British Railways - Past and present



## Foxylady (May 16, 2009)

I've been trawling through a lot of local history books at the library recently, and came across this little gem.
It's as the thread title says. A collection of books about railways with photos showing both the past and the present. The one I borrowed is Devon, of course......but the others in the series are...

Berkshire and Hampshire.
Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and West Hertfordshire. 
Dorset.
East Midlands.
East Yorkshire.
Kent and East Sussex.
Lincolnshire.
Mid Wales and The Marches.
North East, East and South East London.
North West Scotland.
North West, West and South West London.
North Yorkshire.
Somerset.
South Wales.
South West Scotland.
Surrey and West Sussex.
West Midlands.
Wiltshire.
Worcestershire.

A bit dated. The Devon one was first published in 1991, and I did noticed a couple of anomalies...although that may be due to the info available then.
Useful though, both for Railway fans and for finding leads about abandoned rail lines, tunnels, etc.
Cheers.


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## Richard Davies (May 17, 2009)

The Foxline series of books are very good, I've read a few over the years.


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## Foxylady (May 17, 2009)

Richard Davies said:


> The Foxline series of books are very good, I've read a few over the years.



Ooh, that's a new one on me. Cheers, Rich. 
Another series I was told about, by Bishop back along, were Osprey Books. Can't really recall if they included trains, but they were aimed at children and included some excellent diagrams and info about WW2 stuff, especially guns and other defences. In fact, he's used a few of the pics on various threads previously...very useful. I've not come across any yet, although I keep looking in second hand bookshops for them.


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## Dirus_Strictus (May 17, 2009)

Foxylady said:


> Another series I was told about, by Bishop back along, were Osprey Books. Can't really recall if they included trains, but they were aimed at children



Osprey Publishing are one of the foremost publishers of books covering every aspect of military history, from ancient times to the present. Many of the series have been produced with the model maker in mind, containing not only very well reproduced original photographs, but detailed three dimensional drawing, unit markings and colour details. I have most of their WW1 books and these certainly are not aimed at children - even a very precocious one would find them a hard read - mind you the coloured artwork might keep some of them quiet for a few minutes.

Perhaps they did children's books and then decided to specialise in a more lucrative market, the children's book market is a bit cut throat these days.


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## Foxylady (May 17, 2009)

Dirus_Strictus said:


> ...these certainly are not aimed at children - even a very precocious one would find them a hard read - mind you the coloured artwork might keep some of them quiet for a few minutes.
> Perhaps they did children's books and then decided to specialise in a more lucrative market, the children's book market is a bit cut throat these days.



Ah, I didn't realise that as I was only going by what I was told. The diagrams that I've seen are certainly useful and interesting.
Thanks for the extra info, Dirus. I shall continue looking out for them.


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## tigger2 (May 17, 2009)

Foxylady said:


> Ah, I didn't realise that as I was only going by what I was told. The diagrams that I've seen are certainly useful and interesting.
> Thanks for the extra info, Dirus. I shall continue looking out for them.



http://www.ospreypublishing.com/


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## Foxylady (May 17, 2009)

Thanks for the link tigger. 
I previously thought they were out of print books...something else I didn't realise!


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## Parkus. (May 17, 2009)

No North-East England.. despite it being the birth place of railway?


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## Foxylady (May 17, 2009)

Parkus. said:


> No North-East England.. despite it being the birth place of railway?



That's a good point...I hadn't noticed that! Maybe there's a later publication but it wasn't included in the list at the back.


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