The Golden Age of Streamlining

FIRST of all it should be said this is a book not just about locomotives and railways, but is a more general appreciation of the use of streamlining in all industrial designs between the First and Second World Wars.

Streamlining almost always made something look better, but did not always make it work better – and sometimes it was quite the opposite. The author breaks the subject down in to five main chapters covering streamlining in road, rail, air, sea, and even stationary applications.

It is presented as a mix of text and photographs, in a roughly 50/50 split, with the text written in an easy to read yet informative style. The accompanying images were well chosen and well reproduced to illustrate the various points.

RM readers will perhaps be most interested in, or most familiar with, the use of streamlining on the railways of Britain, Continental Europe and the

USA – but in this book we get to see the context of railways within the bigger picture. PB

Published by Amberley, www.amberleybooks.com, 96 pages, softback. £15.99