Table of Contents
Introduction 6
Behind the scenes 8
A steep climb 10
Narrow-gauge adventure 11
Warships and Westerns 14
Happy birthday, GWR 16
My local hero 18
Reservoir dogs 20
The Slow, Miserable & Jolty 22
Diesel and gas turbine locomotive prototypes 24
Steam dreams 26
Blue streak 28
A Kent railway village 30
An eccentric railway empire 32
Swansea East Dock 35
All at sea 36
The Dackers Umbrella 38
The first Severn Bridge 40
Hi-de-Hi! 44
King of the Castles 46
Let us pray 48
The old Slow & Dirty revival 50
South Wales - land of plenty 52
We're all going on a steam summer holiday 54
The last mainline 56
A kind of hush 58
Bog off! 59
A railway coalition 60
Chinese laundries 62
GWR famous trains 1 64
The joy of trainspotting 66
Locomotive builders to the world 1 70
Push me - pull you 1 72
Small is beautiful 1 76
Up in the clouds 78
A railway-owned electric tramway 79
Famous locomotive engineers 1 80
Happy Christmas! 82
Foreign travels 85
I'm all right, Jack! 87
Island railways 88
Made in Scotland 93
Made by the Great Western Railway 96
My local station 98
What a Boer! 100
One-offs 101
Peacetime horrors 104
No more buckets and spades 106
Raised from the dead 108
Birth and death of a railway 110
Chip vans 112
Days out 114
Drinking and driving 116
Let the train take the strain 118
Prepare for take-off 120
Railways that never were 122
We've run out of coal 124
Swindon's last great man 125
Push me - pull you 2 126
On shed, 29 March 1964 128
Flying bananas 130
How rats ruined a railway 131
It's a small world 132
Fair exchange 136
Attention! 140
The infernal combustion engine 142
Shed bashing on the straight and narrow 145
Gone forever 146
We never closed! 148
Locomotive builders to the world 2 150
Mr Bradshaw, friend of the railway traveller 152
Along the route of the Great Central 154
British arties 158
Crash 161
Evenin' all! 164
Dr Beeching, I presume! 166
Famous locomotive engineers 2 168
LMS famous trains 170
Goods in transit, 1963 172
Setting standards 173
The second Beeching Report 176
A bridge too far 178
Famous locomotive engineers 3 180
Royal trains 182
Small is beautiful 2 184
LNER famous trains 186
120 into 4 = 'Big Four' 190
Brush strokes 192
Victorian blood, sweat and tears 194
Goodbye Hazel, Doris, Audrey, Vera, Gwen and Mona 198
GWR famous trains 2 200
Narrow-gauge Phoenix 1 202
The Streakers 206
Famous locomotive engineers 4 211
The Slow & Dirty 213
Who was that man? 216
The lap of luxury 219
Night mail 222
Keep fit! 224
Southern Railway famous trains 227
Return to Riccarton Junction 230
Narrow-gauge Phoenix 2 232
4 into 1 = BR 236
The Muddle & Get Nowhere Railway 238
Faster and fasier 240
The Clockwork Orange 242
All amenities 244
Gobblers, Knick Knacks and Spam Cans 246
The 'Tiddley Dyke' 248
War service 250
Index 252
Acknowledgements 256
