This volume contains fascinating images of Austria’s standard gauge railways from the late 1950s until the early 1970s – a period when a wide variety of steam power remained in use, ranging from veteran classes more than 50 years old to modern ex-Deutsche Reichsbahn wartime locomotives. In the years that followed, the country’s railways would be transformed by the relentless effects of rationalisation and modernisation.

Peter’s remarkable colour photographs are a wonderful record of a bygone era, allowing us to step back in time to an Austria now long disappeared, but captured for posterity by the lens of an accomplished photographer and enthusiast. The pages of this book depict not just the state railway system – the Österreichische Bundesbahnen – with a section devoted to the extraordinary Erzbergbahn, but also the fascinating Graz-Köflacher Bahn, and the sole steam-worked standard gauge line of the Steiermärkische Landesbahnen.

A companion volume, PETER GRAY’S TRAVELS Volume 2: Austria Narrow Gauge & Industry covers the country’s fascinating narrow gauge and industrial lines.