Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> How time flies! Writing this book in the early 21st century and looking back to the 1950 to 1960 period when so much of our old railway system closed it comes as a shock to realise that most people under the age of 50 will have no first-hand experience of the age of the steam railway. Today the fact that Somerset had some 400 route miles of railways of which about 100 still exist will surprise many. Add to that a once busy coal mining area and a scheme to link South Wales to the English Channel and we can sense that there is more here than one might at first think. This last scheme gave rise to the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway which became one of the best loved lines in the country at least by railway enthusiasts. Somerset is unusual in having had almost all its lines run by the Bristol & Exeter company which in turn was absorbed by the Great Western Railway in 1876. Most rural lines in the West Country were proposed and built by local interests who fought through the red tape of getting their Act through Parliament. The actual running of these lines was undertaken by the ‘local’ main line company who would take around 50% of the receipts. (LL)