Yorkshire Steam 1948-1967

Peter Tuffrey

(Great Northern)

ISBN: 978-1-912101-25-2

Hardback – 160 pages – 246x178mm

£19.99

In the best Yorkshire way the title doesn’t pull any punches - say it like it is! Yorkshire of course covers a vast area administered at the time these images were captured by three local authorities, North Riding, East Riding and West Riding.

In this title the author saddles up and gives up the grand tour of ‘God’s Country’, first striking out on the lines around Leeds at Ardsley, Arksey, Arthington and the collieries at Markham Main (Armthorpe) and Rossington (Arkern). An interlude in and around Barnsley Court House takes us to a Fowler ‘4P’ at Barnoldswick located at the extreme western side of the county, before we head to Bawtry on the East Coast main line south of Doncaster. From this it will be deduced the images have been selected and arranged in alphabetical order, rather than any historical or geographical significance that may link them together. As such it is easy to find the location you want, but makes a broad review of the title a little tricky. Suffice to say that a number of major towns and cities appear including York, Hull, Goole, Doncaster, Sheffield, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds and Harrogate. To this many yards, sidings and minor railways also get a look in. Locomotive sheds at Low Moor, Holbeck, Mirfield, Normanton, Skipton, Wakefield and York contrast with Yorkshire coast locations at Staithes and Filey and the Settle & Carlisle at Horton in Ribblesdale with a nice amount of colour scattered throughout. Steam under the wires at Dunford Bridge and elsewhere on the Woodhead route are accompanied with colour views of a ‘Director’ and a ‘B1’ at Sheffield Victoria.

This book should perhaps be considered alongside the author’s previous work from the same publisher, The Last Years of Yorkshire Steam and with a near 20 year timespan covered a contrasting array of locomotive types are featured from Johnson ‘3F’ and ‘2Ps’, Raven ‘B17s’, Robinson ‘O4s’, to Gresley ‘D49’, ‘A3’ and ‘V2s’ and the engines that saw the steam era out, the WD 2-8-0s, Stanier ‘8Fs’ and the ‘Jubilees’, Thompson ‘B1s’ and Fairburn ‘4MT’ 2-6-4Ts still working passenger trains in the final summer of West Riding steam in 1967.

It is great to see the inclusion of a number of industrial railways at collieries, quarries and the like. An engaging title with well written and informed captions and is a nice size for a picture book, easily thumbed and with decent-sized images, some of which are full page. A few colour images have not transferred to the page as well as might be hoped for but generally reproduction is good and the title offers an interesting look at a varied and now lost railway landscape.