Portrait of a Country Railway

The book opens with a narrative passage evoking first the scenes in a typical day early last century, leading up to the arrival of the first train at Craven Arms, and then a poignant shorter evocation of the way things looked shortly after the closure.

Mr. Scott Morgan gives a generous tribute to the work of Edward Griffith, who wrote the first book on the BCR, and explains that this new work does not replace the earlier one, but compliments it. The promise is kept; though some overlapping of material is inevitable, usually it appears with a fresh slant on it. There is also a useful indication of what Mr Scott Morgan regards as the particular strengths of Mr. Griffith's book.

The remainder of the book describes various aspects of the whole lifetime of the railway and its death. Much of the material comes from new research. The extracts from the diaries of the late S. H. Pearce Higgins very interesting, he was a fan of the BCR though he came to know it only in the last few years of its life.

The book contains a large number of photographs. Some are the familiar ones that we have all seen many times, but most will be new to the majority of readers. The photographs are beautifully produced, a comment that extends to the general layout of the book, which also has an attractive choice of typefaces. The inclusion of the 1900 Ordinance Survey maps of the whole line gives an extra dimension, as the route can be examined in detail, this also gives a greater understanding of the relationship between the railway and the surrounding area.

After several years out of print the Society purchased the copyright and has re published this important work, so that it is now available once again for the enjoyment of the railway fraternity.