A familiar name within the pages of Steam Days magazine, the author follows on from his previous work, Scottish steam's final fling, extracts from a teenager's notebooks, with a look at the last steam activities of the London Midland Region. Once again some family history sets the scene where we learn that a talent for reading bus timetables was to be the catalyst for the long career in train planning within British Railways. The changes brought about by modernisation and route cutbacks led to a fascination with steam-hauled passenger trains and privileged cheap travel available to railway employees added to that cocktail. However, after joining British Railways in June 1962 most travel was in the south until the use of a relative's house in Leicester as a staging post offered a new direction of travel in 1964, and it is where the events of this title begin concluding with steam's demise in 1968. 'Voyage of discovery' begins in August 1964 on an overnight train to Newcastle in the enforced company of a train load of Geordies, before a steam trip over Shap to Preston. The Fylde peninsula lines to Fleetwood and Blackpool precede a rare night in digs at Preston. The following day a diesel unit ride to Leeds via Colne is suffered before returning to Leicester, with the day providing a salutary lesson for the future in undertaking some detailed research before venturing out. While that early trip was really a shot in the dark, on later excursions the author was armed with more knowledge of steam activity, and this plays out over the chapters that follow, in the process providing the reader with a vivid picture of how line closures and the introduction of new diesel and electric trains usurped the old order.
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