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The Train Book: The Definitive Visual History

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The click-clack of wheels on rails, the whiff of coal smoke and oil, a whistle in the distance, the feeling of anticipation and excitement at the start of a long journey ....rnrnRailways capture our imagination. They speak to out soul. The elemental attractions of fire and steam, the fascination of technology, and the glamour of connecting faraway places have all helped cement the place of railways in human hearts. For more than 200 tears, trains have fuelled ambitions and attracted ground-breaking engineers, inspiring them to create inventions that tapped into the human desire to move forward and open up a world of possibilities.rnrnMost importantly, railways have contributed to modern history in prosaic, practical ways. Arquably, no single tool has influenced today's industrial world more. From the first stuttering experiments in Cornwall and Wales in the UK to the building of railways that opened up whole continents and helped create nations, as they did in North America and elsewhere, to their capacity to make modern warfare feasible -the invention of the locomotive has shaped the globe, for good and bad.rnrnBefore the railways, life moved at a different speed; ,ost people travelled only short distances from where they lived - there were no cars, no planes, no modern roads. Until the arrival of trains there was no unified time and no compelling reason to introduce it. Towns and cities set their own time until the need for rigid timetables on the railways called for standardization. The new technology fuelled urbanization - growing conurbations were fed by railways, delivering people cheaply from ever farher afield. Rail networks moved commodities that previouslly could not be transported long distances - perishable fruit, newspapers, flowers, and fresh milk were delivered to the masses in a timely manner.rnrnIn these many ways, railways became essential to the creation of mofern life, and acheved it with panache. Companies gave their locomotives and services ecocative names; they came up eith attractive colour schemes; and they worked hard on aresthetics to make their engines graceful, impoosing, or dynamic, as well as functional. The drive to move ever forwards shaped the railways too.rnrnAcross the globe, railways put freat effort into achieving higher speeds, into selling the luxury of their most exclusive trains, and into persuading people to use their services both for business and leisure. Modern marketing, public relations, the seaside holiday - in all these areas, the railway has been an instrument of change and a driving force, It is no wonder that schoolboys have dreamt of becoming locomotive drivers, that authors as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Emile Zola, Agatha Christie, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have bound railways into their dramas and mysteries, or that popular train-based songs like Chattnooga Choo Choo and The Loco-Motion" have stood the test of time."""

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Availability

Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

625.1 TRA

Publisher

London : Penguin Random House., 2014

Collation

320 p.: ill.; 28 cm

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-0-2412-4022-9

Classification

Railroad Engineering/Teknik Jalan Kereta

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

This edition published 2015

Subject(s)

train

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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