Christian Wolmar

I’m a railway enthusiast, fan, anorak or whatever you want to call it, so perhaps my view on this book is slightly tainted? But, why would you read a book that is clearly about rail history if you’re not already interested in the subject?
So, from that position, yes this is a marvellous book. Going from the earliest days of the colliery lines, Trevithick, Stephenson and forward through the 20th century. It’s thorough, perhaps overly in places, but it rewards perseverance. If you were to show more read only one book on rail history generally, then make it this. show less

Few inventions did more to change life in Britain than the railways. Since the establishment of the first steam-powered lines in the early 19th century, they demolished locality, lowered the cost of goods, and made cheap travel a reality for millions of Britons. Yet as Christian Wolmar shows, this transformation was hardly a smooth one, shaped first by numerous growing pains and then the vagaries of government policy. This history, and its role in shaping Britain’s railway system today, is show more the subject of his book, which describes both how the railways changed Britain and how Britons, in turn changed the railways.

Wolmar’s scope is a broad one, ranging back to the early gravity- and horse-drawn routes of the 17th century. Yet it is not until steam engines are introduced that the railways emerge as a prominent mode of transportation. While initially envisioned primarily as a means of moving freight, Wolmar notes that railways soon found transporting passengers to be their most lucrative source of revenue. Soon railways sprang up throughout Britain, and by the start of the twentieth century lines reached nearly every corner of the island. Yet dominance bred complacency, and the railways were slow to respond to the challenge posed by the emergence of road haulage in the early twentieth century. Hobbled by under-investment during the two world wars and handicapped by successive (and sometimes conflicting) government mandates, Britain’s railway network was in decline by the second half of the twentieth century. Yet for all of these problems Wolmar is optimistic about the future of railways, arguing that despite continued dithering over investment in its infrastructure, technological innovation promises to deliver improvements in performance that can ensure the survival of railways for another century.

A journalist and self-styled "transport commentator", Wolmar’s passion for his subject shines through on every page. He writes in a light and readable style that conveys well his extensive knowledge of Britain’s railways without burdening his readers with minutiae. This combination makes his book a superb starting point for anyone seeking to learn more about Britain’s railways and the country’s long, oftentimes troubled, yet always fascinating relationship with them. show less

All you ever wanted to know about trains but could never be bothered to ask. Huge history of how the railways came to be and how they changed us along the way. Definitely written by a fellow strongly biased towards trains, but who else would’ve done it? Worth the time.

This is undoubtedly a useful book: there simply aren't any other recent, comprehensive overviews of British railway history around, and Wolmar has made a serious effort to fill that evident gap. It's a lively and very readable account, it avoids getting bogged down in technicalities, and it presents an unsentimental, critical account of the failings of the industry as well as its successes. Unusually for such a recently-written book, it's also remarkably well-edited and free from conspicuous show more errors. Sadly, it's also relatively free from maps and illustrations, although the few that are included are mostly well-chosen.

On the other hand, it demonstrates fairly effectively why other writers have shied away from this particular challenge. There is simply too much subject-matter in 200 years of British railway history to cover it all effectively in this sort of single-volume study. Wolmar has a tendency to focus on the bits of the story that make "good television": we get Fanny Kemble on the footplate with Stephenson, for the umpteenth time, but we don't get a clear picture of how the promoters of the early railway companies developed the mechanisms for raising the necessary capital, or where the civil and mechanical engineering skills came from. It would have been nice to see a bit more discussion of how railways used the know-how developed in the construction of turnpikes and canals, and what they had to add to it. At an even more basic level, he spends quite some time on the difficulties that companies like the Liverpool & Manchester had in getting parliamentary approval, but never explains why they needed it, or what that process involved: for the target readership of a book like this, I would have thought that those would be basic questions to address. I know I was very puzzled about that sort of thing when I first started reading about railway history.

A very positive point is that throughout the book he draws attention to the role of the railways as employers, and spends at least some time discussing the development of the rail unions and their relations with management - although again it would have been nice to have more. He draws on Helena Wojtczak's recent work on railwaywomen when discussing the two world wars, but says little or nothing about the role of women on the railways at other periods.

Something that impressed me was Wolmar's refusal to accept the conventional notion of a "golden age" of the railways, either in the late Edwardian period or in the thirties. As he makes clear, the industry was in considerable trouble during both these periods, and any impression we have of the contrary comes from clever advertising campaigns and the nostalgia of earlier historians.

The last couple of chapters, discussing British Rail and privatisation, are extremely condensed, and amount to little more than a blatant plug for Wolmar's other book on the Great Privatisation Scandal. It is a pity that he didn't have space to do more, although obviously the opinions in this part of the book are likely to get stale as soon as we have the benefit of a bit more hindsight.

Wolmar draws mostly on secondary sources, but he makes it clear what comes from where, and includes a comprehensive bibliography that should be a good start for further reading.

All in all, this probably isn't a tremendously interesting book unless you are a complete newcomer to the subject, but it does provide a useful modern alternative to the likes of Hamilton Ellis and O.S. Nock for those have developed an interest in railways and want to move on to something a bit more challenging. show less