The Era of Rail Blue Diesel and Electric Trains InterCity Cross-Country Rail Services

Published by Amberley Publishing www.amberley-books.com

Each volume: 165mm x 235mm size, 96 pages, B&W/colour, softback. £15.99

THE common denominator for these three Amberley titles is BR blue/grey liveries. Between them, they give a fascinating flashback to a time of great traction variety, even if the dominating colour was blue.

The first two titles cover much of the UK network, and even the third, though obviously focusing on a north-south axis, still manages to include a diverse range of locations.

As is typical of this Amberley format, these are largely pictorial volumes, with two images to a page, accompanied by (sometimes) detailed captions.

Although BR blue originated in the late 1960s the majority of images presented by Mark and Andy were captured in the 1980s. Only David’s book contains a heady assortment of views from the 1970s, though, frustratingly, too many are undated.

We also feel duty-bound to mention the difference in reproduction values – while colours in Mark and Andy’s books are generally crisp and bright as we’d expect, those in David’s are often dark/murky with way too little tonal variation.

This is a real shame, as the subjects, many of a now by-gone era, will be of particular interest to diesel/electric enthusiasts and modellers alike.