An Intimate Portrait Of The Watlington Branch - Volume 1
- Country Branch Line
- Volume 1 - The story of the line from 1872 to 1961
- This ground-breaking branch line history - the most ambitious we've yet published - chronicles the history and life of the Watlington branch. Running unobtrusively through 9 miles of beautiful Chiltern countryside, it linked Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire to the small town of Watlington in Oxfordshire. Bypassed by all important routes, the people of Watlington hoped that a railway connecting it to the Wycombe line and thus to London and the rest of the country, would bring about a reversal in the town's fortunes.The townspeople were to be sorely disappointed for neither Watlington nor its railway was ever to have a heyday. But that is much of the charm of the place, and it is the quietness, the slowness and the almost storybook nature of the railway that attracted the authors of this fascinating and absorbing book to spend many years researching it.
- From its opening in 1872 through its very mean years under private ownership, and rebirth under the Great Western, to its closure in 1957, the history of the line is traced in considerable detail, but this is no ordinary railway text.The authors believe in their approach that railway history is not just to do with facts, dates and locomotive classes, but it is also about the people who worked on and used the line, and this account relies very heavily upon lengthy interviews with the former staff and local people.Throughout the book the characters shine through, making it a compelling and most enjoyable read.
- Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of wonderful photographs, this definitive history of one of Britain's most appealing lines should not be missed by anyone interested in railways, local history or in the way things used to be.
- 240 pages, 1998, Case bound
- Wild Swan Publications
- ISBN-10 1874103437
- ISBN-13 9781874103431
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- Mr G.Johnson
- British Railway Books
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- NP7 1AU