Robin Jones (4) (1953–)

Over the past few years, heritage railways in the UK that have run 1940s nostalgia weekends have found themselves unwilling hosts of a number of Wehrmacht and SS reconstructionists, some of whom have acted inappropriately towards members of the public. Starting from this, Jones has assembled a quite deep look at the Holocaust and the role that railways played in it. Indeed, it often goes deeper into the history than might at first be expected. It examines the Kindertransport, the course of show more the Holocaust and some of the political background, both at high level and in a more direct, 'on the ground' sense. It also looks at issues of collaboration in occupied Europe, the historical background to German anti-Semetism (including the Eugenics movement), examines some railway schemes that never went further (such as Vichy France's plans for a TransSaharan railway, construction of which started with the use of slave labour provided by the Nazis) and finally asks what lessons we have learned.

This book is a timely reminder of a horrifying period of history that those with an interest in German railways often put to the backs of their minds. As such, it is highly worthwhile. show less

A really good and concise history of great railway stations in the UK - and well illustrated. King's Cross, St.Pancras and Eurostar, secret Down Street, Paddington, York, Waterloo and Manchester Victoria and many more are covered. This shows how much investment there has been in stations in recent years.

A really interesting and sobering read. It is arranged chronologically and filled with illustrations and focus points in separate boxes to the textual commentary. The descriptions and analysis is quite in depth,with a look at the background to accidents, the incidents themselves, eye witness accounts, investigations and outcomes.

The biggest thing I took away from this was the vast array of similarities between accidents whether they occurred in the 1800s, 1900s, or 2000s. I suppose there are show more only so many things that can go wrong on a fixed system, however, it was astonishing to me that it often took several incidents of the same type before serious changes were made to safety materials and guidelines.

Of particular interest to me was the Moorgate accident. If it had been investigated now, it would probably have been put down to a loss of situational awareness by the driver, but back in the 1970s, very little was known about this issue affecting people such as pilots, train drivers, long haul truck drivers etc., and it was sad to see how belligerently the investigators went after the dead driver.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of trains, accidents, accident investigation and reporting. A sad, but good read. show less

Even-handed and fair assessment of the reforms that Dr. Richard Beeching put in at British Railways in the early 1960s; the author seems to take the position that Beeching should not have gotten most of the "credit" for the oft-derided cuts in service, and the author points the finger at successive governments for directing the job. The only flaws are maps that don't point out precisely where certain railways were (which would have greatly helped comprehension for non-Brits) and a tendency show more to use bald lists. Otherwise, interesting. show less