BRITAIN'S DANGEROUS RAILWAY HISTORY.
As is often the case, having read a book on a particular subject, "Rails to the Front" in this case, I then find myself reading similar books for a while. I am afraid this means the next few book reviews will be about railways !!!!!
This particular book comes from my library and has not been read for a very long time. It basically details the various accidents that occurred both during and after the construction of the many railway tunnels in the UK. Most of the material is taken from newspapers of the time supplemented with official reports. The former of course offer by far the most interesting accounts because of the headline grabbing descriptions as well as the quaint language of the time. There are not too many illustrations but those included are both interesting and informative.
Overall a fascinating book and highly recommended to railway historians but also generally as just a good book which I should have re-read a long time ago. In fact, the author has another book on disasters during the construction of Britain's railways which I have just ordered as a direct result of enjoying this book so much !!!!
Just down the road from us is a house built for the family of a railway worker who died when trying to shift a rock off the railway line into Bristol as a train approached. The house has a plaque to comemorate this and the road was renamed Memorial Road, having been Pit Road before.
ReplyDeleteIIRC the train accidents that occured due to different times being used (Bristol is 15 minutes different to London) led to the adoption of GMT to try and prevent this.
Hi Steve...How very interesting...yes the time thing was a great problem for early railways. Even getting accurate clocks was an issue too. Regards.
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