Real Railway Tales

From Taking the Marks to Double Derailment

Geoff Body, W.E. Parker

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750973502
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Running a railway is a complex business that constantly throws up situations, dramas, and misadventures, both major and minor, for those involved in it. Geoff Body and Bill Parker have collated a rich selection of railway stories to create an enjoyable book of adventures and mishaps illustrating their daily obstacles faced on the railways, from handling the new Eurostar to train catering, nights on the Tay Bridge to rail "traffic cops," and from mystery derailments to track subsidence. However interesting the infrastructure of the large and varied railway business may be, the real heart of this great industry lies in its people, the complex jobs they have occupied, and the dedicated way in which they have carried them out.

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction, Sources and Acknowledgements
• Cold Relief at Derby
• Lighter Moments
• Highdyke
• Quick Thinking at Wimbledon
• A Small Empire
• Shove-Ha’penny
• Tickets, Please
• A Poor Investment
• What’s in a Nickname?
• ‘The Yorkie’s in the Cupboard’
• Trainferry Dilemma
• Booking Clerk at Histon
• Forgotten Collar
• Under the Bowler Hat
• Nights on the Tay Bridge
• Happy Families 1992
• From Junior Typist to Chairman’s PA via Land’s End and John O’Groats
• Rail Traffic Cops
• West of England
• The Mobile Command Post
• Lincolnshire and Dr Beeching
• A Stroke of Luck at Milngavie Junction
• Eurostar Story
• Ship Ahoy
• Area Movements Inspector
• More Bowler Hats
• The Awakening
• Who are You Anyway?
• Robbing Peter
• Royal Recall
• Earl Mountbatten’s Funeral Train
• Fox and Blocks
• Willesden Carriage Sidings
• Willesden New Line
• Unfamiliar Territory
• Double Derailment
• Thundersley
• Track Subsidence
• Show and Tell
• The Finance Manager
• The Denton Branch
• Red Nose Day
• ‘Get Rid of It’
• Cardiff Freight 1967-71
• A Tale of Two Branches
• Train Catering
• We are Sorry that Trains are being Delayed due to Adverse Weather Conditions
• ‘I Have no Coal’
• The Mystery of Haxby up Distant
• Southern Wanderings
• Derailment on Rannoch Moor
• Broad Street Terminus
• Taking the Marks
• The Black Mac
• DI Dad
• The Euston Backing-out Roads
• An Arresting Scene
• Barging In
• Guarding the Fife Coast Express
• Closure Challenge
• Mrs Carter’s Last Goodbye
• The Last Journey
• Glossary
• Copyright