Steam in East Anglia: A Colour Portfolio - Hardcover

Reseña del editor

Although lacking the population density of, say, the West Midlands and the West Riding of Yorkshire and without the industrial base of, for example, the South Wales coal field, East Anglia still possessed, until the Beeching era, a significant railway network. Largely constructed by the Great Eastern Railway, but with contributions from the Midland & Great Northern and others, the network encompassed most of the region's centres of population. Few places were more than a few miles from a railway station and, in a predominantly rural economy, the railway represented an essential link between farm and market. The Eastern region of BR was one of the first sections of the Nationalised railway industry to bid farewell to steam, but in the previous decade the region had seen the initial introduction of the 'Britannia' Pacifics and much else, ensuring a great variety of steam operation throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Dick Riley, one of Britain's foremost railway photographers of the period, was to start recording Eastern Region in colour in the early 1950s. Over the years his impressive collection of illustrations portraying steam in East Anglia has grown and in Steam in East Anglia: A Colour Portfolio he has delved into an impressive collection to provide a superb pictorial reminder of steam in this most attractive part of the British Isles. Supplementing his collection with contributions from others, the author explores the great variety of steam operation that the enthusiast could see in East Anglia in the decade up to the end of Eastern region steam in the early 1960s. From crack 'Britanninia'-powered expresses on the main line through Ipswich to Norwich, to the last 2-4-0 tender locomotive in service on BR, East Anglia offered the enthusiast a fascinating range of steam operation - all of which is graphically recorded in Dick Riley's latest book for Ian Allan Publishing.