Warwickshire Railways: Book Review
The Alcester Branch by Stanley C Jenkins and Roger
Carpenter
Softback Cover, 215mm x 275 mm, 104 pages, 86 Black and
White Photographs and Illustrations
Wild Swan Publications. ISBN: 978-1-905184-05-7 Cover price
£18.95
A delightful portrait of the six mile branch that connected
the Midland's cross country line at Alcester with the Great Western's route to
Stratford Upon Avon at Bearley. Originating in the 1860s the line wasn't built
until over a decae later when the two companies at either end of the route
agreed an uneasy truce to allow its operation. This was one of those minor
routes that was shut down in both World Wars as an economy measure but somehow
managed to survive for freight until 1951, with a couple of miles surviving
into 1960 for wagon storage. Not quite as exhaustively comprehensive in its
photographic coverage as some books owing to the obscurity of the subject, this
book nonetheless allows more than a glimpse of a charming rural railway.
The history of this little-known GWR line has never been the
subject of a full monograph before, and it is therefore the local history of a
particularly attractive part of rural Warwickshire. The book is a collaborative
venture between local railway enthusiast Roger Carpenter, who has spent many
years assembling a large photographic archive of this, his favourite branch
line, and Stanley C. Jenkins, a museum curator and social/transport historian.
:
Contents are:
- Introduction
- Origins of the Alcester Branch
- Construction and Opening of the
Branch
- The Line in Operation 1883-1939
- War Years
- The Line Described
- The Post War Years
Mike Musson
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