GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY THE BACK LINE REVISITED FURTHER EXPLORATIONS OF THE EASTERN REACHES OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY’S DERBYSHIRE EXTENSION, by Hayden J Reed, Booklaw. PRICE: £23.99

This informative work really needs to be read along with the same author’s first volume on the subject, The Back Line (price: £27.95, also published by Booklaw). Such was the amount of extra information available after the first publication that this second, entirely complementary book, was inevitable. As noted in the first offering, the subject examined was not a glamorous line, being a secondary route. That said, it was a bit more than that, and a route of great interest, now long-lifted, and well-described in both books. Having written several books myself, whenever anything is published, extra information always emerges, even if it’s no more than corrections or additions; such is the case here. Many are just clarifications, though the misidentification of some locomotive classes should have been better intercepted (how a 9F’s tender can be seen as that of an ‘Austerity’ puzzles me). There are a few bloopers regarding locomotives in the smaller book as well – an O4/7 is quite different from an O4/8. I would have also thought that any railway author would have known how to spell ‘Bulleid’ (as in the SR’s CME, as opposed to that of a victim). The pedantic quibblings apart, both books are worth acquiring for the wealth of diligent research contained therein. Almost everything described has now been lost forever, and it’s maudlin to perceive what’s gone. Even the vast expanses of Colwick Yard and depot have been destroyed, though the photographs and descriptions are sad reminders of what was once a great railway installation. It’s axiomatic that anyone contemplating building models of the areas described should acquire both books. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that a great competitor drove a line right into the heart of the Midland’s empire at Derby?

And, beyond – even by way of a ‘severed arm’ taking the GNR as far as Stafford (on the WCML) from Uttoxeter. A late friend of mine would have loved these works because he once had to travel from Stafford to Edinburgh. Enquiring at the LNER’s booking office at Stafford Station in the 1930s as to the price, he was told it would be the same as from Stafford on the LMS. He thus went due east, travelling along the ‘Back Line’, eventually picking up his train to Edinburgh at Grantham. An absorbing read, and well worth acquiring.