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Robert Gratton

Author of The Ashover Light Railway

2 Works 12 Members 1 Review

Works by Robert Gratton

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This is a lavish book about a minor railway that few people outside the railway community are likely to ever have heard of (and probably not that many within that community). The Leek & Manifold was a narrow gauge line that ran from almost nowhere to nowhere; it opened in 1904 and closed thirty years later. It was one of the earliest closed railways to be officially converted to a footpath. So why the interest?

Well, it ran through an isolated area of great natural beauty; it had some technical points of interest (the locomotives were designed by an engineer who had previously designed engines for India, and he repeated his specification down to heat insulation in the cabs and huge headlights to prevent the engines colliding with elephants - always a problem in deepest Staffordshire; more seriously, the railway used transporter wagons to bring standard-gauge wagons into remote areas, a practice common on the Continent but little used in the UK); and the whole line was built with a Victorian flair for ornateness that we marvel at in our more utilitarian age.

But above all, it was built to provide a socially useful service to the community, and the author emphasises this. In an age where competition from road transport rapidly eroded the railway's ability to make any money whatsoever - not that it ever made much - a purely commercial undertaking such as the pre-nationalisation LMS could only see the Leek & Manifold as a candidate for early closure. Of course, having decided that, the LMS did little to try to promote the line anyway. But the 'social railway' deserves study, because the Leek & Manifold embodies the whole argument about such services. Of course, today we see how the revived Welsh Highland line exemplifies the aim of getting sightseers out of their cars and into areas where they can properly appreciate natural beauty; an approach which, had the line somehow survived to our present day, would doubtless meet with much approval.

The author claims that this book is little more than an "extension" to the standard history of the line, written by a group of local writers under the pen-name "Manifold" in 1955 and long out of print. He sells himself short. This is the most comprehensive history of a railway that one could wish for. Of course, given that it only worked for thirty years, one could say that it should be possible to find everything out about it! But the author has unearthed a lot of new material on the line; and even where he presents familiar pictures, the quality of the book is such that they are seen in a new light.

Production values are about as high as they can get in a book with a limited market; reproduction is perfect, paper stock is of high quality and the design is the best that could be asked for.
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RobertDay | Apr 15, 2011 |

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