During the 1960s and early 1970s Britain was devastated by railway closures and many parts of the country were left without any kind of railway service. The timetables of the 1950s and early 1960s are therefore filled with journeys which are now either impracticable or impossible, and the landscape of Britain is scattered with the remains of abandoned railway infrastructure. In this nostalgic journey, Paul Atterbury traces the routes that have long since been abandoned but are nevertheless still rich in railway culture.
Paul Atterbury's Lost Railway Journeys is not just about closed lines; it is about memory, nostalgia and imagination. Walking old railways is now a national pastime, while many miles of lost lines have also been saved as preserved or heritage railways. The lines and journeys in this book are arranged regionally, and have been selected to show the diversity of the routes that were lost. They are depicted both in their prime and as surviving remains integrated within the landscape, waiting to be rediscovered by the generations that knew them best.