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Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain

Author: Christian Wolmar
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

15 reviews
Sales Rank: 1499

Media: Paperback
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.4

ISBN: 1843546302
EAN: 9781843546306
ASIN: 1843546302

Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - Fire & Steam
•	Hardcover - Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain

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Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

WAYS TO RUN A RAILWAY July 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This fascinating new history of the railways of Britain (with a little about Ireland) is approached mainly from an economic viewpoint. Technical issues are also dealt with in a readable and intelligible way, but the main focus is on the social and politico-economic context. Very properly, considerable space is given to the role of the railways in wartime, from the Boer War through the two World Wars, but the main thread follows the commercial motivations of the various interests who have tried to make commercial sense of it all. This thread takes us all the way from George Stephenson through the early `railway mania', the partial eclipse of rail transportation by the internal combustion engine, and the confused and satirical changes of strategy in the 1950's and 1960's up to the present day. Again very properly, Wolmar offers his own analysis of the present situation, and without trying to be too much of a prophet himself after so many before him had got the thing all wrong leaves us with a fairly clear indication of how it all may develop from here. It is probably worth saying that this book does not really belong in the huge category of railway nostalgia publications. The `feel' of this narrative is quite well conveyed by the illustrations, the aim of which is to convey the atmosphere of successive epochs. Anyone looking for more maps has an enormous range of alternative publications to choose from.

I find Wolmar's analysis very sensible and convincing in general. He likens the railway mania to the infamous South Sea Bubble and to the dot-com boom and bust, and that is how it seems to me too. Enthusiasm and excitement got the better of common sense, and the instances that Wolmar picks are well selected. Any nostalgist could think of dozens of others, but that is not the kind of book this is, and Wolmar is right not to lose his main focus. I suppose the crowning example is the Great Central network, stigmatised by Wolmar as a `railway without a purpose'. True enough, but Wolmar is sufficiently fair-minded to point out that behind even this scheme was Watkin's misty-eyed vision of a railway connecting Manchester with Paris. This has almost but not quite happened now - a break of journey is needed in London, and it might not have been necessary if Watkin's Great Central main line (built, I might add, with better clearances between the tracks than the surviving main lines) had been retained.

Wolmar also says, rightly in my opinion, that the Great Central main line would have been a great asset as a freight and diversionary route now that overcrowding on Britain's roads has forced traffic back on to rails, which are in their turn now stretched for capacity. `20/20 hindsight' one might say, but the problem remains that nothing less than accurate and even visionary foresight is what is required to handle railway planning, and I'm not disposed to mitigate my criticism of the way it has been done on any grounds that I would doubtless myself have done it as badly or worse. After this lapse of time we can all see how the early entrepreneurs were misled, and Wolmar's account is admirable. It is even better in his narration of the fiasco of railway planning in the 50's and 60's. One asks oneself - Did anyone involved get anything whatsoever right? Perhaps, but occasional sparks of insight were quenched and smothered by the multitude and monstrosity of the errors, and once again I commend the author for the level-headed and cool way he tells it.

The main lack that I sensed was in the treatment of rural railways, and I put this down to a certain tendency to treat accounting and social impact as mutually exclusive categories. I wanted more on this topic, and I would have liked the matter treated more from an economic standpoint in line with the general tenour of the book. Anyone at all versed in the matter knows how dubious, tendentious and crude were the accounting methods used to justify closure of rural lines, and Wolmar is again right in saying that if British Rail had been more alive to the economic necessity of abandoning steam in favour of diesel and electric traction not even the maddest axemen of the 60's could have got away with as much as they did. However we are now confronted with expensive road fuel, inadequate roads and overarching environmental anxieties associated with both, and we are surely going to have to look again at the old branch lines. Some, e.g. the Coniston branch, could certainly have been saved if road fuel had cost anything near what it costs now. Wolmar cites a couple of my own favourite and best-loved hopeless cases, but these are not quite parallels. One is the branch from Brighton to the Devil's Dyke, a genuine non-starter from the start, so to speak. However the heavenly route of the Invergarry and Fort Augustus, although irretrievable now, could once have been part of a valuable trunk line but for Victorian politics. Anyone interested in this little-documented story may still be able to find a fascinating VHS tape of which I have offered a review on this site, although you may have to go to the tourist office at Fort Augustus, as I had, to get it. However there needs to be a proper study of the instances that are less clear-cut, and I hope Wolmar or some other competent party may let us have it.

Some proper coverage is given to the role of women, but among the big engineering names while we hear about Churchward, Gresley and Stanier, where has that uncontrolled runaway Bulleid escaped to? Among railway managers the name of Chris Green is rightly picked out for honourable mention, and what a pity British Rail did not survive to have him as chairman. The writing is clear and mainly good, but when I read `homogenous' I had to wonder how many proof-readers still know the correct word, and when Wolmar says that Col Stephens wrote `coruscating' memos to backsliders I don't think it's `coruscating' that he means.

Where does the train go next? I doubt we shall ever see cheap road fuel again, and if we are capable of learning from past mistakes in railway planning there are plenty to learn from. In my own neck of the woods we are battling to keep the Woodhead Tunnel available for re-use as a railway because the trunk roads across the hills are inadequate and dangerous, and plans for a partial bypass of a couple of villages are going to be unhelpful at high cost. As it happens, this line was part of the Great Central. Watkin, perhaps you should be living at this hour.

4 out of 5 stars

Excellent social history June 7, 2008
As other reviewers have said, the story of the railways is only part of the appeal of this book. It takes the railways as a starting point for a smoothly written review of our social history over the last couple of centuries and of the changes which were brought about by an efficient, affordable transport service.

Wolmar sensibly concentrates upon the characters who shaped the railways and how the railway services reflected society and helped to shape its change. One for the interested layman, rather than the committed railway buff, I suspect.

5 out of 5 stars

I cannot add anything useful to the excellent reviews below ... June 7, 2008
... simply excellent, and prompted the purchase of two other books by the same author - Broken Rails (describes the Tories' foolish privatisation) and On the Wrong Line (about the Labour Government continuing the same failed policy, despite their election pledge - sounds familiar?)

4 out of 5 stars

Good book even for non-railway enthusiasts June 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Not being what you might call a railways enthusiast, I picked up on this book shortly after reading "The Industrial Revolutionaries". Much like that volume, this is a relatively short overview of what is a vast subject and more detailed books on various specific aspects of railway history obviously exist and many are name checked here. Like a previously reviewer I spotted a couple of factual errors, and found the style sometimes a bit erratic, with the author darting here and there in various chapters where perhaps a more coherent approach may have paid dividends. Nonetheless this is an interesting and informative read which concentrates on the human story as much as on the technical aspects.

5 out of 5 stars

The best short history of the railways available April 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

An excellent book which gives a great insight to how railways came about and has a number of references to read about certain areas in more detail.
I have a couple of small gripes, which are that, as someone who had a keen ineterest in railways throughout the late 70s and 80s, there are 2 factual errors in the chapter on British Rail which are: 1) Jimmy Saville was the front man for 'This is the age of the train' campaign, not the 'We're getting there' one; and 2) He states that there were no rail closures from 1977, whereas there were 4 that I am aware of in the 80s (for the curious among you: Kilmacolm, Clayton West, Woodside - Sanderstead and Tunbridge Wells - Eridge).
These pedantic gripes aside: EXCELLENT!