Description

Hydraulic Memories takes the reader on a virtual journey over the former Western Region from Paddington to Penzance, featuring a variety of locations with a few diversions en route and looking back at the times when Westerns, Warships, Hymeks and the North British Class 22s could be seen working. Most of these pictures have not been published before. It is particularly pleasing to have found some unseen pictures of the Class 22s at work, as they were less photographed than the other Hydraulics, whose reign on British Rail came to an end (with the Westerns) on the 26 February 1977.

The colour photographs are spread from the 1960s through to 1976 with a variety of liveries carried through those years. Not only have the locomotives changed but we also see the coaching stock and freight wagons in use at that time, along with the stations as they were then. Many of these places have changed beyond recognition, as has the rolling stock of course.
This book should be of interest to anyone who had followed the Hydraulics and travelled the Western Region at that time. It should also appeal to Railway Modellers who wish to study train consists and views from the past. Drawing on the Transport Treasury archive, I have supplemented the collection with my own and friends’ pictures to give a good sample of how things were back in those days.

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