You will never have seen a railway book like this before. The Heritage Railway
editor has combed the British Isles to find the country’s weirdest railways, and
presented the strangest of them in one volume.
For years, conspiracy
theorists talked about a secret railway network beneath Wiltshire to serve a
bunker city which would haven been the seat of government ion the event of a
nuclear war - and were proved right! The pictures are all in this book.
Also,
did you realise that there is a secret railway running through the fairytale
island of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, or the remains of a complete network
on Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel? Brunel’s Great Western Railway broad
gauge was years ahead of its time - and so was his atmospheric railway - but
both were edged out by market forces and deficiencies of available
technology.
Visit the Spurn Head Railway with its sail-powered vehicles. Look at the
Volks Electric Railway in Brighton, the first electric line in Britain, and its
truly bizarre sister line which had a passenger car running on stilts through
the sea.
Take a trip on the world’s smallest double-tracked public railway, the Romney
Hythe & Dymchurch, to Dungeness and not only find a village made from old
railway carriages, but a series of strange railways laid across the shingle. See
the fabulous double-ended Fairlies in action on the Ffestiniog Railway - and on
the standard gauge in South Wales too!
Visit the farm lines in Lincolnshire used to carry potatoes to make Smith’s
Crisps. See the unique railways carved from stone which was used to carry
granite blocks to build London Bridge. Review Britain’s plans for hover trains -
and British Railway’s patent for a flying saucer - a true story!
All this and
much, much more is to be found in Britain’s Weirdest Railways, a truly unique
publication not to be missed!