Desert Island Moment

[Peter Kazmierczak]

If you could keep just ONE item from your railway collection of books/timetables/maps/magazines etc, what would it be?

 

Mine's a toss-up between John Gough's Midland Chronology or Bradshaw's Guide for August 1959. If pushed I'd go for the Bradshaw.

 

So what single item would you keep?

[Physicsman]

A nigh-on impossible question to answer and my response might be different in 6 months time. 

 

However, at the moment, it'd be Gavin Morrison's recently published "The Last Decade of British Railways Steam", simply because of the magnificent collection of wonderful photos inside (taken by the author).

 

Jeff

[Trevellan]

Colin Gifford's "Each a Glimpse". It reminds me why I love railways so much and why I took up railway photography.

[The Stationmaster]

Probably the GWR Service timetables for a single month in 1947 (all bound into a single volume) but it would be an awful toss up against my bound volumes of service timetables from the final year of the broad gauge, complete with the name of a previous owner (E.T. McDermott) written on the cover.  And how could I do without my fully amended 1936 General Appendix, then there's 'The Great Days of The GWR' - rather 'coffee tableish' but some good pics and I wrote one of the chapters.  Oh dear - time to give up on this idea I think  

[eastwestdivide]

Cobb's atlas of "all the lines there ever were", or to give its proper title, "The Railways of Great Britain - A Historical Atlas".

It might have the odd inaccuracy, but it tells a good story for something with so few complete sentences.

[caradoc]

One of Strathwood's Seventies Spotting Days books, but I would have difficulty deciding which one !

[jamie92208]

Either Maury Klein's monumental trilogy on the history of the Union pacific, or O S Nock's Steam Railways in retrospect.

 

Jamie

[Welchester]

 'The Great Days of The GWR'

 

You've just prompted me to order a copy from Amazon.

[markharris]

Same here. Desperately proceeding to Amazon now.

[southern42]

Desert Island.  Hmm.

 

I think I'd be torn between Great Western Railway London Division Engine Sheds and a full colour model railway catalogue.***

A good read or:

I'd make glue, paper and structures from local resources then use pictures to start making a model railway/diorama depending on how inventive I could be.  Any pictures left would be stuck in a homemade scrap book just as I remember the one that was given to me as a kid.  The only difference being that these would be in colour - and I'd know what's what. 

 

Of course, if I could take a model railway with me and generate some electricity / live steam then I'd go for a good book. 

 

*** Anyone who has seen me reading a magazine will know that I spend more time studying those trade pictures than anything else.

A habit I picked up when those seed catalogues dropped through the letterbox when I was, oh, so small.  :no:

[Baby Deltic]

Diesel Depots, the early years by Irvine Press.

[shortliner]

Without a doubt, "Mixed Train Daily" by Lucius Beebe - I have only recently managed to obtain a copy, and it is full of fascinating photos, that seem to reveal more on each viewing.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

....Jowetts Railway Atlas....there is a whole new discovery to be tracked down (if you pardon the pun) each time that I sit down with it.

 

Dave