The Dawn of Steam

Born out of the Industrial Revolution, the railway locomotive may be seen as Britain’s greatest gift to the world. It allowed continents to be opened up, new trade routes to be established and people to make journeys in a few hours that previously had taken several days. The single invention redrew the map of the globe and paved the way for the modern world, with the automobile and aeroplane following it its wake. Through more than 60 colour images, this conveniently pocket-sized book looks not only at Britain’s rich heritage of locomotives that have survived from the dawn of steam, but the many replicas made in modern times to ‘fill in’ the historical gaps, and where to see them today. It is the first volume to bring them all together under one cover. A graduate of the University of Central England, Robin Jones, founding editor of Heritage Railway magazine, was a news editor and chief investigative reporter at the Birmingham Evening Mail, and over the years has produced several books and special publications, along with historical features for numerous other newspapers and periodicals. He has been interested in railways from a very early age, when his elder brother Stewart took him trainspotting at Widney Manor station in Solihull at the age of four, at the end of the British Railways steam age. Imprint: PiXZ Books, ISBN 978 1 906887 28 5, hardback, 110x155mm, 64 pages.