English Narrow Gauge Album Volume 1 by Michael Whitehouse Hardback

This album is the first of two volumes covering the extraordinary breadth and individuality of narrow gauge railways in England, ranging from the diminutive 18ins gauge serving the L&NWR's famous Crewe Works to the Colonial-style Leek & Manifold 2ft 6ins gauge line in Derbyshire. The theme of these books also consider the overall development of narrow gauge railways in England, within the political, legal, economic and social frameworks of the 19th and 20th centuries. Narrow gauge railways in England were largely built for three different purposes: industrial, military or as common carriers connecting communities left out of the railway mania construction struction of the 19th century. Within this framework, local entrepreneurs and several innovators, such as John Barraclough Fell, Magnus Volk, Richard Rapier and E.R. Calthrop, pushed out the barriers of the narrow gauge.\nBy the outbreak of the First World War there were ominous warnings that road transport might provide a b.