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PUBLICATIONS The club publishes a quarterly magazine of news and reports, which is distributed free of charge to members. Additionally, the club's former Chairman - Jeff Vinter - has published a number of books on the subject of walking old railways. These are currently out of print, but second-hand copies can usually be found at a reasonable price by searching for 'Railway Walks' on Amazon. For anyone who wants to get out and actually walk some old railways, the gazetteer listed below is available on a mail order basis from Jeff at 1 Victoria Road, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 7HY. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to 'Jeff Vinter'. Please allow 7-10 days for delivery. A bibliography listing
just about
everything that has been published on old railways (as a a specific
subject) appears further down this page. However, this does not
include books about individual lines, which generally are histories
that give little, if any, coverage of the lines after closure. |
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Bibliography The club is frequently asked for details of books which describe walking old railways, or the history of railway closures. As far as we are aware, the following bibliography is comprehensive, but we would be pleased to hear of any omissions. ISBN numbers are provided so that visitors to this site can order the books from local libraries, if they wish. Please note that this list does not include details of books about 'forgotten railways' or individual branch lines, since such titles are not specifically about walking old railways. Besides, if we included such details here, this list would become unwieldy and extremely long.
David Turnocks Railways in the British Isles is the most academic study of old railways, but a great deal of factual and historical information can be gleaned from all of the above titles. Two major studies of old railways have been commissioned by the government:
The Appleton Report was disappointing and did little more than state the obvious by listing and categorising what remained on the ground. However, the Grimshaw Report set out detailed proposals for the re-use of many disused lines in a series of 32 separate annexes. The organisation which produced the Grimshaw Report metamorphosed into Sustrans Ltd., the Bristol-based path-building charity, and many of the proposals in the report's annexes have now been turned into successful railway paths throughout the UK. In fact, some now form part of the National Cycle Network. If your appetite for
books on old railways has still not been satisfied, you could try the
11 titles in the David & Charles' Forgotten Railways series,
or the same publisher's 14 volume Regional History of the Railways
of Great Britain, although this deals with all lines, whether closed
or open. Since the 1980s, a number of 'Then and Now' books have also been
published, some of the most popular being by Mac Hawkins, who goes to
extraordinary lengths to return to the exact spot where a period photograph
was taken, even if it means hiring special equipment to regain the height
afforded by a demolished railway structure such as a signal or footbridge.
Mac's books The Great Central Then and Now and The Somerset
& Dorset Railway Then and Now are particularly recommended. |
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