Victorian and Edwardian Railway Travel: 689 (Shire Library) - Softcover

The standard format of Shire books always imposes a discipline on their authors, but never more so than here. This is a hectic journey through eight years of improvement in railway travel, starting appropriately at the station, with its lavatory, bookstall, refreshment room and kiosks. As we gather speed, we get brief glances in quick succession of timetables, tickets and luggage, and then settle down to look around the increasing sophistication of the carriage. We are appreciative of the toilet, and the lighting that allows us to read our yellowbacks and our Tit-Bits, but are ambivalent about smoking and Ladies Only provision. (What happened to the heating?) Dining and sleeping carriages are not attached until our journey is well advanced, and we are trying out this new standard of luxury when suddenly we are faced with the perils of train travel; did we remember to purchase our accident insurance? As we approach the end of the journey, we contemplate how society is divided by the railway into four (then three, then two) classes, the purpose for which people travel , and how we are influenced by the new advertising to use our increasing leisure time. Our journey's end comes all too soon, but here is a railway hotel. Perhaps it could be our next Shire experience. --Grahame Boyes, Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society (July 2014)

The railway was one of the main modes of long distance travel for Victorian Britons, and its processes - checking the timetable, buying a ticket, taking a seat - were central to both the industry and leisure of the period. David Turner here tells the story of travelling by rail between 1830 and the First World War: the development of stations, passenger carriages, waiting rooms and tickets; less familiar phenomena such as smoking and 'ladies only' compartments, and excursion trains; and the danger of accidents. This introduction to the Victorian and Edwardian railways shows the face of an era reflected in its new method of travel, and will allow the reader to note fascinating similarities between travel in that period and our own.