Recommend Railway Books

SuperSpeedMaglev

Wonderfully Old Fashioned
Contribute which books you'd recommend! :)
I recommend DK's The Train Book, it's not a mouthful.(To be honest, don't like the book's name.. :hehe:, but Mallard on the front, YES! ;))

I'd also recommend The World Encyclopedia Of Locomotives, what it literally says on the tin, or in this case cover.

The Illustrated History Of British Steam Railways is another goodun.

The Art Of The Locomotive, yes Sir!

All Change is a goody.. Just for future searches, the author's Paul Atterbury.
These are a few I own, so, what do you recommend?
 
My interests are creating models so my book collection is focussed on that.

I'm mostly a fan of UK locos but if you are interested in U.S. steam then Linn Westcott's Steam Locomotives Cyclopedia Vol 1 is highly recommended. The book is full of drawings and pictures of a number of classes.

For UK locos, you cannot go past Ian Beattie's "Drawn and Described".

But my all time favourite is my copy of Ian Allan's "British Railways Locomotives Combined Volume, 1961" that I got as a kid in 1961. It's a bit dog eared. You can buy a 1949 version (reprint) from Ian Allan.

Another is Hugh Longworth's "British Railways Steam Locomotives 1948-1968" that is handy as a reference. It has line drawings but not suitable for modelling.

Yet another is one I chanced upon in a bookshop called "The History of Great Western A.E.C. Diesel Railcars". OK, they are not steam but are rather quaint in their design. Andi06 has made a couple of and there are some variants that I intend to make when I have some time.

I have a number of other railway books, most of a general nature, that folk have bought for me over time.

I often think there have been more books written about railways than most any other subject.
 
'British Locomotives of the 20th Century' by O.S. Nock, Volumes 1, 2 & 3.

Contains a wealth of information with line drawings.
 
The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does by John Armstrong. Amazon. THis one's hard to find, but for those who model prototypes, or freelanced prototypes, this is a good one.

Beyond that, I have several Kalmbach books in areas of interest that I model. Brian Solomon also has some good books, though they're more like coffee table books. I'm particularly fond of his two signaling books.

And you can't go wrong with the Steam/Diesel Locomotive Cyclopedia.
 
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