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Product Description
Di Drummond's concise and informative guide to Britain's railways will be absorbing reading for anyone who wants to learn about the history of the industry and for family history researchers who want to find out about the careers of their railway ancestors. In a clear and accessible way she guides readers through the social, technical and economic aspects of the story. She describes in vivid detail the rapid growth, maturity and long decline of the railways from the earliest days in the late-eighteenth century to privatization in the 1990s. In the process she covers the themes and issues that family historians, local historians and railway enthusiasts will need to understand in order to pursue their research. A sequence of short, fact-filled chapters gives an all-round view of the development of the railways
In addition to tracing the birth and growth of the original railway companies, she portrays the types of work that railwaymen did and pays particular attention to the railway world in which they spent their working lives. The tasks they undertook, the special skills they had to learn, the conditions they worked in, the organization and hierarchy of the railway companies, and the make-up of railway unions - all these elements in the history of the railways are covered. She also introduces the reader to the variety of records that are available for genealogical research - staff records and registers, publications, census returns, biographies and autobiographies, and the rest of the extensive literature devoted to the railway industry.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
This is a useful little book. However, its title is rather misleading in that the author does cover a much wider range than just family history -- in fact only about a quarter of the book is directly concerned with this. The rest of it gives a good description of working lives on the railway, especially some of the slightly more unusual posts. There is also a concise history of British railways -- armed with which you should be able to conduct an intelligent conversation on the subject in most company. There are (as with most railway books) a few inaccuracies. The extra background material is supposed to help the family historian conduct their investigations more adequately -- whether it will achieve this I don't know but it surely does no harm!
On the topic of family history the author, an academic, explains just about every investigative avenue open to the researcher: all well and good but I suspect the average family historian will not have access to some of the privileged sources of the University academic unless they are very fortunate or have a deep pocket for subscriptions. Nevertheless, if you want to do a thorough job this book will point you in the right direction and certainly if you are an academic researcher -- perhaps just investigating railway employment etc this book has some useful tips.
The book is quite small and conveniently sized -- it will slip into a large jacket pocket or a decent-sized handbag but beware its weight which is deceptive and due to the use of high-quality glossy art paper. The publishers are to be congratulated for producing such a high-quality book at a very reasonable published price and extremely good value when purchased through Amazon's free delivery -- £9.74 is a giveaway.
Had it not been for the slightly misleading title and that the book might possibly be a little over-comprehensive for the average family researcher, I would have rated it five stars rather than four. Notwithstanding all that, this book is highly recommended.
On the topic of family history the author, an academic, explains just about every investigative avenue open to the researcher: all well and good but I suspect the average family historian will not have access to some of the privileged sources of the University academic unless they are very fortunate or have a deep pocket for subscriptions. Nevertheless, if you want to do a thorough job this book will point you in the right direction and certainly if you are an academic researcher -- perhaps just investigating railway employment etc this book has some useful tips.
The book is quite small and conveniently sized -- it will slip into a large jacket pocket or a decent-sized handbag but beware its weight which is deceptive and due to the use of high-quality glossy art paper. The publishers are to be congratulated for producing such a high-quality book at a very reasonable published price and extremely good value when purchased through Amazon's free delivery -- £9.74 is a giveaway.
Had it not been for the slightly misleading title and that the book might possibly be a little over-comprehensive for the average family researcher, I would have rated it five stars rather than four. Notwithstanding all that, this book is highly recommended.
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