Steam Trains

The Magnificent History of Britain's Locomotives from Stephenson's Rocket to BR's Evening Star

Colin Maggs

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781445632834
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Rail Transportation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Most people are under a misapprehension: the Rocket was not the first steam engine. Quite a few were built before it, but Stephenson's engine was the first successful steam locomotive. Colin Maggs tells the story of the steam engine, from pre-Rocket days, to British Railways building the Evening Star – the last main-line locomotive – through to the preservation movement and the new-build locomotives of extinct classes such as the Tornado. In this comprehensive history, Colin Maggs, one of the country's foremost railway historians, tells of other, perhaps less well-known aspects of the history of steam in Great Britain. The first railway lines, the activities of the early railway companies, the design and manufacture of faster and faster engines and the lives of the men and women who drove the industry. These and other fascinating stories from the age of steam are all revealed in this accessible book, illustrated with over 150 photographs and period ephemera, many in colour.

Table of contents

• Cover
• 1 - Why Railways Were Developed and How the Steam Locomotive Was Invented
• 2 - Locomotives Before the Rocket
• 3 - The Rocket; Rainhill Trials; Why the Rocket Was so Good
• 4 - Early Railways in Great Britain
• 5 - Early Rolling Stock and How It Developed; How the Railway Affected Life in Britain
• 6 - Signalling
• 7 - Railways in Late Victorian Times
• 8 - Narrow Gauge, Industrial and Light Railways
• 9 - The Heyday of the Steam Railway, 1900–1914: the Rise and Fall of the Steam Rail Motor
• 10 - Principal Pre-Grouping Railways
• 11 - The First World War and Its Aftermath
• 12 - Speed in the 1930s
• 13 - The Second World War
• 14 - Nationalisation; the Steam Railway Declines; Strikes; Closures
• 15 - The Massive Preservation Movement
• Picture Section
• Select Bibliography