Search results for ""Author Gordon Edgar""

Continuing his series of regional books reviewing the industrial railways of England, Wales and Scotland, author Gordon Edgar looks at the railways of what is today Northumbria, County Durham and Teesside, covering a period of the last six decades, with an emphasis upon the former National Coal Board railways. This is the eighth volume in the series, covering an area once proudly boasting widespread coal mining, steelmaking and shipbuilding activities, as well as numerous other traditional industries large and small, most now sadly history. The industrial railway diversity that one could have witnessed in this region up until the latter part of the twentieth century was arguably unequalled in Britain. The National Coal Board’s Lambton, Hetton, Bowes, Derwenthaugh, Ashington and Backworth railway systems, and the steel and ironworks complexes at Consett, Lackenby and Skinningrove, and Doxford’s shipyard in Sunderland are just some of the locations familiar to many industrial railway enthusiasts, all of which are covered. Far-reaching changes in this region over the last half-century sadly leave just three bona-fide industrial railway locations featured in this book surviving today. Primarily utilising previously unpublished photographs, the author offers a fascinating insight into the industrial railways and locomotives of this region, endeavouring to convey the raison d’etre of such railways held in great affection by many.

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This seventh volume in the series of regional books examining the industrial railways of England, Wales and Scotland looks at railways of the former Ridings of Yorkshire, a region that once boasted widespread coal mining activities, which strongly influenced the county’s fortunes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The numerous steel manufacturing complexes, chiefly centred around the Sheffield and Rotherham area, and the one-time highly polluting coal and chemicals by-products plants are looked at, including the well-known Orgreave complex during the 1980s, a time when many coal mines and their supporting industries and railways were rapidly dwindling in number, a fact sadly driven home when examining the contents of this book. Other industries in the county, once heavily reliant on railways, either internal narrow gauge or standard gauge, included an extensive peat bog railway system east of Doncaster, water treatment plants around Leeds and Bradford, gas and electricity plants serving some of the county’s towns and cities, numerous scrapyards supporting steel manufacturing, stone quarries in the rich limestone region to the north of the county, and brick and block manufacturers in the Vale of York, all contributing to the rich industrial railway heritage of Yorkshire. With informative captions and an array of striking and many previously unpublished historical colour and monochrome photographs, author Gordon Edgar delivers a fascinating overview of the industrial locomotives and railways of Yorkshire, essentially covering the last six decades and striving to convey the attraction of the many former industrial railways of this vast and topographically varied county.

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Following on from his popular series examining industrial steam in regions of the UK, Gordon Edgar looks at a series of fascinating workings around the world during the final days of steam in industry. Numerous globe-trotting trips in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first century by the author, and other talented photographers, has produced a remarkable record of steam at work in locations as varied as Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. With stunning, evocative photographs that capture not only the final days of these industrial workhorses, but also the atmosphere of the environments in which they toiled, including coal mines, quarries, steelworks, and sugar plantations, this is a fitting tribute to an important aspect of international industrial history. This first of two volumes focuses on scenes captured in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

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Following on from his popular series examining industrial steam in regions of the UK, Gordon Edgar looks at a series of fascinating workings around the world during the final days of steam in industry. A number of globe-trotting trips in the latter part of the twentieth century and early twenty-first produced a remarkable record of steam at work in locations as varied as Germany, Austria, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Cuba, Java, India and China. With stunning, evocative photographs that capture not only the final days of these industrial workhorses but also the atmosphere of the environments in which they toiled, including opencast coal mines, quarries, steelworks and sugar plantations, this is a fitting tribute to an important aspect of international industrial history. The volume focuses on scenes captured in the twenty-first century.

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This is the ninth volume in the ten-part series of regional books examining the industrial railways of England, Scotland and Wales. Like elsewhere in Britain, changes have been far-reaching in industry, and Scotland has certainly suffered considerably in recent decades with the loss of its traditional coal mining, steel and manufacturing industries, especially many of those that were once located around its Central Belt. The diversity of the locomotives and the railways that once served industry in Scotland is a fascinating and neglected subject, and both standard and narrow gauge systems, most of which no longer survive today, are covered within the pages of this book. The author presents an array of striking images, both in colour and black and white, that strive to include some feel for the locations being studied, covering the broad spectrum of industrial railways that once existed in Scotland. These mostly previously unpublished photographs, accompanied by detailed captions, reflect the changing face of Scottish industry over the last six decades or so. As the title suggests, this book is chiefly about Scotland’s industrial railways and its locomotives, many actually constructed in Scotland, but this work is also a sad reminder of how much our traditional industries have contracted, or have even been lost entirely over this period, either through globalisation of manufacturing, or the importation of commodities at a cheaper market rate than could have been obtained at home.

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