The pioneer years Railways

Beskrivning:

RAILWAYS: THE PIONEER YEARS
celebrates the first 100 years
of railway development. It
incorporates nearly 900 illustrations
drawn from five continents, and
has an authoritative text that offers
not only a detailed account of
the technological achievements
which made possible the building of
railways, locomotives and rolling-
stock, and a rapid improvement in
performance, but also an examin-
ation of the social changes brought
about when it became possible to
inove passengers and goods over
long distances quickly, safely and
economically.
The book acknowledges the out-
standing contribution of Britain and
its pioneering giants — George and
Robert Stephenson, Trevithick,
Brunel and many others; and exam-
ines in detail the proliferation of
railways in Europe and in North
America, while attention is also
paid to railways in Africa, South
America and the Far East.
Locomotive development and de-
sign, technical changes effecting
track, rolling-stock and signalling,
the engineering challenge posed by
the construction of tunnels, bridges
and viaducts, station architecture,
improvements in passenger safety
and comfort, are all scrutinized
as are special features such as
mountain and underground rail-
ways. Over 70 types of locomotive,
classified by wheel-arrangement,
are discussed or illustrated and
examples are drawn from over 50
railways and railroads.
Although Railways: The Pioneer
Years finishes at the end of the
1930s, the main features of railways
as we recognize them today were
already in place by 1935. This
survey of railways during the
'heroic period' offers marvellous
documentary images and a text that
explains the outstanding engineer-
ing feats which made possible a
system of transport that for many
still offers not only utilitarian speed
and comfort but a heady mixture of
romance and nostalgia.

With an authoritative chronology
up to 1939 and index of types of

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