Britain's Rail Routes Past and Present: The East Coast Main Line - King's Cross to Newcastle - The Route of the Silver Jubilee - Hardcover

Body, Geoffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1857940520 ISBN 13: 9781857940527

Publisher: Past & Present Publishing Ltd, 1995

Synopsis

In September 1935 pioneer LNER 'A4' `Pacific' No 2509 Silver Link hauled the inaugural `Silver Jubilee', Britain's first streamlined express train service, between Newcastle and King's Cross, marking the dawn of yet another new era of rail travel on the East Coast Main Line. The story had begun in the middle of the last century when the Great Northern, North Eastern and North British companies worked together to provide through services from London to Edinburgh. At the 1923 `Grouping' the trio formed the backbone of the new London & North Eastern Railway, with its eminent locomotive engineer Nigel Gresley. Later knighted, Gresley was to play a major part in the exciting developments in streamlining and speed records during the 1930s that so thrilled the travelling public. Subsequent generations of distinc­tive and powerful steam locomotives took the LNER through the Second World War and into British Railways days following Nationalisation in 1948, and were only displaced by dieselisation in the later 1950s. In 1961 the legendary 'Deltic' diesel­electrics assumed the mantle of top­flight Anglo-Scottish expresses, reign­ing supreme until the arrival of the equally celebrated High Speed Train sets in the late 1970s. Since 1991 the whole of the East Coast Main Line has been electrified, and today the Class `91' electric locomotives provide stan­dards of speed and comfort unimagin­able not so long ago. It is against such a background of pioneering development that this superb `past and present' volume is set, contrasting views of up to 60 years ago with the same scenes today - indeed, such is the pace of change on the East Coast that even scenes from only a few years ago are now unrecognisable. (continued...)

Edition details

• Publisher: Past & Present Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857940520
• ISBN 13: 9781857940527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192