Stopping – Train Britain A Railway Odyssey by Alexander Frater Hardcover 1981

On offer a hardcover “Stopping – Train Britain A Railway Odyssey” by Alexander Frater, photographs by  Alain Le Garsmeur.

How long the country train will survive is questionable. But whatever the politicians decide Stopping-Train Britain will ensure that the romance of railways is not forgotten. Alexander Prater, accompanied by photographer Alain Le Garsmeur, travelled up and down ten lines around Britain, deliberately choosing a mixture of the famous and the obscure. Here is the great classic run between Settle and Carlisle, a line which in engineering and in scenic terms can be described only in superlatives. In Scotland Frater chose two famous routes – the spectacular line from Glasgow to Mallaig across the haunted wilderness of Rannoch Moor (and its famous bouncing rails) and the line from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh, often described as the most beautiful train journey in the British Isles. In Wales they travelled the great Welsh line from Dovey Junction to Pwllheli which runs so close to the sea that signalmen must consult their tide tables and, periodically, send their trains down flooded tracks – a very different line from the Vale of Rheidol, served by British Rail’s last steam-hauled service. Other lines may be less well-known, but the journeys along them proved just as enjoyable, each revealing a treasury of interesting places and unexpected people. The line from Norwich to Sheringham took Frater through the green heartland of eastern England and past a surprising array of fine medieval churches, while the one from Preston to CoIne showed a bleaker landscape, a route lined by mills and grimy old town halls. On the Carlisle to Barrow route his train shared the track with Down Freights carrying radioactive nuclear fuels to Windscale, while the tiny ten mile railway from Oxenholme to Windermere provided some unexpected insights into the workings of the only surviving Lake District branch line. And in London, the Broad Street Line, which waddles through the back gardens of London, is a contrast to the others, but it passes Kew Gardens, Hampstead Heath and a lovely stretch of hidden woodland near Gunnersbury, and has many of the characteristics of a rural railway.

The book is in a good condition and has been read, the dustcover is showing signs of wear, small tears on spine rear cover.

Published: Book Club Associates with arrangement Hodder and Stoughton 1983

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