O. S. Nock (1905–1994)

Gushing and totally uncritical account of the modernisation of the West Coast Main Line between London, Manchester and Liverpool in the early 1960s. Commissioned by British Railways to celebrate one of their biggest ever engineering projects, and written by one of the best-known railway journalists of the day.

Besides having a very impressive repertoire of journalistic cliché at his disposal, Nock was of course the man behind the long-running "Practice and Performance" column in Railway show more Magazine, only really happy when he had a stopwatch and clipboard in his hand. Nevertheless, he does a pretty conscientious job here of recording the impressive statistics of a project that involved rebuilding and resignalling several hundred miles of heavily-used railway without shutting it down (including the total reconstruction of three of Britain's busiest stations), introducing a completely new technology, and retraining hundreds of employees to use new equipment. No doubt in obedience to instructions from his clients, there is not a single reference to what any of this cost, or what had to be done politically to get it approved, nor is there any mention of trade unions or industrial relations...

Technically, I felt it was a bit light on the details: Nock throws in lots of numbers and buzzwords, but he never goes very deep. The purpose of the book is to show us what a good job the BR engineers have done, not to explain how you build a railway.

Not one of the great railway books, by any means, but it's still an interesting period piece, particularly when we read it fifty years on and reflect that it's all had to be done again since Nock's time, and that there are now fairly serious plans for a completely new high-speed line duplicating the WCML. show less

Considering the title, Nock cannot resist telling the whole story from the LMS' constituent companies onwards. He starts with Webb's 2-4-0 engines for the LNWR built in 1874, fully fifty years before the LMS came into existence! He then works his way through all the pre-Grouping companies that went to make up the LMS. As if that were not bad enough, he displays massive partisanship for the products of Crewe over those of Derby; I reciprocate by saying that this is just not on!

We have to wait show more until page 181, two-thirds of the way into the book, for the LMS to be formed; and the story of its locomotives only takes just over 90 pages. True, the LMS only lasted 25 years compared with the 60 - 80 year lifespans of its constituent companies; but the book is supposedly about LMS locomotives. But by 1989, O.S. Nock was the doyen of British writers on locomotives and could do pretty much as he liked.

Nock himself says that at the formation of the LMS, "...nearly all that had gone before was cast on one side, and ...the casting on one side was followed by a period of such indecision and muddle that the top management was compelled to bring in a complete outsider to 'scrap the lot' and begin again!" So why he felt it necessary to describe everything that went before is beyond me!

That is not to say that there isn't a lot in this book to commend it; it is as comprehensive an overview of nearly eighty years of locomotive history as anyone could ask for. But for a detailed account of LMS locomotive history, as opposed to the whole development of locomotive engineering that led to the LMS designs, the reader must look elsewhere. show less

Part of a beautiful little illustrated series by O S Nock from the seventies, this book is a bit quaint now with its colour plates followed by a text section. That said the illustrations by Clifford and Wendy Meadway are charming and well researched (especially the colour schemes of international locomotives). The artists were also prolific contributors to Ladybird books in the period.
The series is worthwhile in that it provides a sweeping history of world railways, from the idiosyncratic show more viewpoint of the prolific O S Nock. His opening essay summarises the period well, and it is always interesting to see the carriages, locomotives, wagons and signalling apparatus chosen from around the world. The previous title in this series was "Railways in the Years of Pre-eminance". By the interwar period road vehicles had begun to challenge railways. O S Nock shows how the railways in many parts of the world responded by becoming more competitive through seeking ways of speeding up services. American locomotive design emphasised simplicity and low cost running, while in Britain increasing speed was emphasised, and greater thermal efficiency to save fuel.
The mighty Santa Fe 3771 represent the 'Zenith' of high speed US locomotives designed to haul "The Chief" and "The Fast Mail" long distances with low servicing. Oddly this volume doesn't include the famous A4 Pacific introduced as part of the competition in Britain to provide the fastest passenger service to Scotland, and setting speed records in the process. It does include the "Princess" and "Duchess" classes, of which Nock considers the latter "the finest express passenger locomotive to run in Great Britain.
My own New Zealand is well represented, with the ubiquitous Ab, Wab, K and J classes represented along with the 56" passenger cars only just removed from charter service with Kiwirail. An enjoyable book to browse through. show less

O.S. Nock was considered the doyen of British railway literature in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. He wrote extensively on steam locomotives, their engineering and performance; many who knew those writings were unaware that he also wrote standard railway histories for Ian Allan throughout the 1950s. But even fewer people were aware that he also had a Day Job, as an engineer for the Westinghouse Signal and Brake Co., eventually rising to become their Chief Mechanical Engineer. Here he applies that show more knowledge to give one of few accounts of the history of signalling, as opposed to 'how-to' books or those describing the system themselves. show less