RAILWAY enthusiasts can be a particularly partisan breed. Like football supporters defending their team?s virtues to the last ? regardless of league realities! ? they will doggedly adhere to old company loyalties.
Once a Southern man ? always a Southern man. And if, to the aficionado, GWR equates God?s Wonderful Railway then all the remaining companies are damned. Loftily dismissed in an unswayable eulogy to Swindon and everything Great Western.
A shared interest in railways is not necessarily a recipe for a good humoured delve into the delights of the subject. Arguments can break out and sparks fly.
In the West Country loyalties largely fall into two camps. While one may admire the pedigree steeds of the LNER and LMS from afar, it is the railway nostalgia spawned on our regional doorstep that makes the strongest impact. Youthful memories will out.
For me the Swindon-built brass and copper-clad locomotives that sped GWR expresses westward are eclipsed by the vision of Bulleid Pacifics ? streamlined or rebuilt ? hauling malachite coaches along the former Southern route around Dartmoor.
In those far flung days of steam supremacy, the twilight days before the diesel dawn, time hung in limbo. Everything seemed eternally the same before a rush into headlong progress. Sleepy branchlines survived against the odds. Holiday makers were hauled to the West Country in their droves before the advent of the two-car family and cheap flights abroad.
Then came the Beeching Axe. Death of the branchline, rationalisation of the system. Diesels ruled. Steam was on the scrap heap. Suddenly, for change has a habit of creeping up unannounced, the present became the past.
It is always a wonder that an abundance of photographers were recording events in an era far less camera orientated than today. As a result splendid visual records of not just the trains, rolling stock and stations long gone but also an essence of bygone decades has coincidentally been captured.
Ian Allan Publishing produce books that, at every flick of the page, rejuvenate our sepia memories into a colourful recollection of the past.
There is much for both Southern and Great Western enthusiasts in recent titles. And, for those who can happily appreciate the merits of both, the books offer a positive cornucopia of delights.
Steam on the South Western ? a colour portfolio by R C Riley (Ian Allan £14.99) takes us on a pictorial journey from London to the Atlantic Coast. Evocative images from the early 1960s offer halcyon glimpses of North Tawton with a pausing Padstow express, Hatherleigh with a one-coach Halwill Junction train and an Ivatt tank at Gunnislake bathed in August sunshine in 1961.
En route we have visited the main lines to Weymouth, Portsmouth and Exeter as well as branchlines to Lyme Regis, Exmouth and Sidmouth. Locomotives featured include a whole array of Southern classes from mighty Merchant Navy class Pacifics and West Country class Pacifics to Lord Nelsons, T9s and Ns right down to ubiquitous ranks of tank engines.
The result is an unadulterated whiff of nostalgia.
The GWR built excellent 4-6-0 express locomotives ranging in power from the impressive Kings and Castles through to Granges, Counties, Halls and Manors.
Totalling 330 locomotives the most numerous was the Hall class and Working Steam: Collett and Hawksworth Halls (Ian Allan £14.99) by Roy Hobbs is a fitting tribute to this design.
It worked everything from top link expresses to more mundane freight turns.
Hobbs depicts this workhorse at a multitude of locations throughout the Western Region from the capital to Cornwall. It is a pleasing format to devote a book to one particular class? and here is one that will draw many admirers.
There was always an amazing sense of atmosphere stepping into an engine shed. Hot wisps of steam and sulphurous fumes created a heady concoction in those dark, smoke filled lairs. Here like reposing dragons locomotives slumbered, simmered or hissed impatiently for their next turn of duty.
Maurice Dart in West Country Engine Sheds (Ian Allan Publishing £16.99) has done us all a favour by allowing us to step back into those murky cathedrals of light and shade ? be they small sheds with a handful of locomotives or large ones with a hundred.
With a mix of colour and black and white pictures we visit major sheds such as Exmouth Junction and Laira and feast on a rich mix of both Southern and Western Region locations and locomotives.
Along with the pictures are details of the classes that normally frequented the sheds together with an example of numbers taken from various visits by the author.
At Okehampton a T9 turns on the turntable in 1959, while in another shot a West Country can be seen peeping out of the single lane shed.
There is a glimpse of Launceston, Meldon ? which was home to one locomotive, as well as the major sheds in Cornwall.
An LMS locomotive that was never a celebrity but was acclaimed for its hard work right up to the end of steam in 1968 is the deserving subject of a book in the Working Steam series. Stanier 8Fs by Jeff Ryan, David McIntosh and George Moon (Ian Allan Publishing £14.99) is a fine portrayal of the once ubiquitous 2-8-0 designed primarily to provide heavy freight power.
An excellent choice of photographs shows these locomotives pounding along the main line with lengthy freight trains in tow.
And finally . . . what?s in a name?
During the steam era and beyond into the 70s station names were carried on attractive enamel ?totem? shaped signs attached to lamposts or suspended from station awnings.
Each region was allocated a particular colour. The Western was brown; Southern, green; Eastern, dark blue; Scottish, light blue; Midland, maroon and North Eastern was tangerine.
As they began to disappear with stations closing or being modernised collectors took an interest.
The Book of British Railways Station Totems, undeniably a labour of love for enthusiasts Dave Brennand and Richard Furness, is a delight to behold.
While the shape of a totem is a totem is a totem . . . the evocative name it may carry conjures much more.
Long names, short names, names on two lines all hold individual charm.
Some collectors seek only one region while others are attracted by the mix of colours as much by specific locations. To some the totem is an echo of happy holidays, a memory of a long closed local station, or some far-flung exotic location on the edge of the network.
To others they are merely repetitive shapes of enamel and to claim more is just so much fancy.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. This splendidly illustrated and factually fascinating book makes us realise these once everyday items of railwayana are indeed something special.
The book is £30 plus postage of £3.95 from Gloucester and Essex Railway
Publishing Ltd, P O Box No 2093, Wickford, Essex, SS12 OWP.