BUILDING A RAILWAY : BOURNE TO SAXBY - Stewart Squires & Ken Hollamby
1. Review in The Railway Magazine, Book of the Month, April 2010
2. Review by Joe Greaves (on Amazon website, 10.10.09)
The new benchmark for railway books, and much more.
Many railway books these days are little more than a collection of black and white photographs with spartan captions, no index and relatively cheap production. They fulfil their purpose but you don't buy them to read, merely to look at the pictures occasionally and put away on the shelf again.
'Building a Railway - Bourne to Saxby' is different. I can imagine some people being put off by the price, after all, you could buy several books for the cover price of this one, but I guarantee you it is worth every penny. It is a magnificent, sumptuous work.
This is not just a railway book in the conventional sense either. The photographs were taken by Charles Stansfield Wilson, a keen amateur photographer and the Resident Engineer responsible for the construction of the railway line from Bourne in Lincolnshire to Saxby Junction in Leicestershire during 1890 - 1893.
Fearing that they had started to deteriorate and keen to see them preserved and brought to a wider audience, with great foresight, the husband of his great-granddaughter offered the family collection of photographs to the Lincoln Record Society (LRS) in 2007.
Their initial idea was to produce a booklet using them, but it became clear that the subject matter, the construction of a railway line in the late Victorian era, was so rare that they deserved much more.
The LRS and The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology decided that a large hardback book was a much more suitable way to present this material, and the result is one of the finest railway books, in fact finest books I have ever seen.
It is beautifully made, laid out in such a way that each photograph has the space it needs to be properly appreciated and with detailed descriptions interpreting what is actually shown in the pictures. Each of the photographs, around the size of an A5 sheet, is accompanied by a colour photo taken in 2008 or 2009 of the same location, along with maps and original drawings from the construction work. There is also a comprehensive nine page index. How many railway books have that?
The photographs are of national historical importance as there were very few taken of any railway construction in the Victorian period. Only those of Frank Sutcliffe of Whitby, recording the line from Whitby to Loftus in 1875 - 81, and S W A Newton on the Great Central Main Line from 1894, both professional photographers, are comparable.
The authors spent months painstakingly identifying the location of each photo along the 16 mile route and it is fascinating to see how much of what was there in 1890-93 has survived. Even a specific tree in one picture, although amazingly it was blown down in a gale just a few weeks after they took the modern photograph of it.
The latter part of the book is a completely re-set and re-printed version of John Rhodes' 52 page A5 sized 1989 paperback book 'Bourne to Saxby' (ISBN 0-948017-07-4) which gives the history of this part of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway from the construction until it closed in 1959.
But this is not just a book for railway enthusiasts, in fact there are hardly any locomotives to be seen (just the Manning Wardle 0-4-0s used by the contractor).
For M&GN enthusiasts, here is a book with over 70 photographs you have certainly never seen before, and from the dawn of the line. There is even a picture of all the Midland and the Great Northern directors at Saxby Station during their inspection visit in April 1893. This was the section of line that finally connected the M&GN to the 'outside world' and opened the way for the famous 'Leicesters' and the exploitation by the company of the holiday potential of the Norfolk coast.
Any other enthusiast of Victorian railways will also find it fascinating, especially those who prefer the infrastructure to the 10,000th picture of '4472 at Grantham' (and yes, I know 4472 isn't a Victorian loco!)
For family historians, the construction work was being undertaken during the 1891 Census, so you may be able to spot a relative in one of the pictures (unlikely, I'll admit, but possible) and I believe there may be more to come from the authors on this subject in future. Have a day out this weekend and see the bridge your great-grandfather built.
For students of photographic history, here is the best, in fact possibly only, collection of amateur photographs (remember Mr Wilson was a full time engineer but only an amateur photographer) of a railway being built in England during the Victorian era.
And for people who appreciate a beautifully produced book, I cannot recommend this volume too highly. My only fear is that relatively few will discover it before it goes out of print.
If a better railway book is produced this year, I will be amazed. As I said in my title to this review, this is the new benchmark for the genre. I would advise that you buy yours now while you have the opportunity.
