Welcome to British Railways Illustrated Volume 4 No.5. In the 1940s, a good hundred years after men first started putting steam locomotives in sheds, experts were still pondering and arguing the most efficacious method of carrying oil smoke from the interior of the building. In the good old days a trough ventilator would do, mainly because it looked right, but in many situations smoke remained an appall ing nuisance, particularly as engines were lil up. Apart from all that, in an alarm ingly short period the roofs tended to fall in anyway and in truth, this was often the best means of ameliorating smoke. Only in the 1940s and 1950s, with the application of science and technology (the Second World War seemed to show that so many problems could be solved if they were studied and tested for long enough) were attempts made to eliminate Ulis. At last a reliable form of concrete const rue lion was arrived at. and wind tunnel expertise went to curing the problem of smoke. It must have been with some considerable chagrin then, that the engineers discovered that the vagaries of wind strength and direction were, maybe, the main arbiters of smoke disposal in engine sheds after all. The bogy was cold smoke.' I' or more of these mysteries, see Rebuilding Wakefield Shed, by the aptly named Ian Sixsmith...

Slow Train to Cardigan is a background account to the remote (at least to those of us afflicted by Metrocentricity see A Reader Writes) Whitland to Cardigan line, a twisting rural lifeline already long outflanked by buses even as the services staggered into the 1960s, hardly changed since the promoters first began the service eighty, ninety or more years before. Melded to this is a photographic record of a day out on the line near the end, a delightful trundle through long lost, impossibly-rural stations (every one of them) behind a 16XX pannier. Peter Rose is known now for his work in a number of modest albums published this last year or so - notably for his fresh way of looking at familiar subjects and well, a knack of recording fresh and even unique subjects in a familiar and comfy lashion.

Chasing the A4s was an occupation certainly not invented by Peter as the great engines were with terrifying suddenness, revealed to be mortal after all in 1962 appropriately as the grimmest winter in years began to grip but with kids arriving he took a few years to accomplish his task, missing a few on the way (the A4s not the kids) and coming across some fascinating contemporary impedimenta in the process - he found most of the engines and at least some of the bits...

War Report. The most extensive so far in this popular regular feature - an amalgam of Public Record Office documents. Admiralty Convoy and Sinking Reports, personal reminiscence and some extraordinary photographs - Atlantic Train. And an extraordinary tale, for the story of the American S160 2-8-0s paralleled the desperate story of the Second World War itself. It begins with the frightening, freezing passage of the Atlantic, captains going down with their ships, sunk by U Boats and icebergs, to a working life in a Britain geared for nothing but war, to hidden storage in south Wales valleys and eventually Europe, close behind the Allied armies on wrecked and devastated railways, forging across the continent to occupy almost all the former theatres of war. Over Here., and Over There!

Having missed/omitted/lost the usual seasonal stuff - holly around the border of the title page, snow draping the lettering on the cover. BRILL, in a dose of post Seasonal mince pie dyspepsia, gets properly to grips with the white stuff - lots of slush and freezing wind, icicles and mufflers
After the Merrymaking recalls something of the reality of snow on the line, in the dead months alter Yule. It was ‘orrible...