Locomotives in Detail

Series have a certain attraction to publishers, and librarians tend to dislike them (and seldom react rationally towards them, acquiring some and not others). This  series is rather expensive: No. 6 costs £16.99 for 96 not very well reproduced pages. Backtrack has a cover price of £3.50 (64 pp) and Railway Archive has a cover price of £7.50 (96 pp). The board cover scarcely justifies such a high price. Not all have been seen, but the ones which have include an excessive number of poorly reproduced illustrations, but make an attempt to exploit the Colour Rail collection to the full. There is not really enough detail to satisfy the locomotive historian, although enough may be present to keep modellers happy (both categories are mentioned in publisher's blurb). The ones seen so far do include further sources of information in books (but with emphasis on Ian Allan products). They will be inserted into the relevant sections  of steamindex as they become availble.

1: Bulleid 4-6-2 'Merchant Navy' Class. R.J. Harvey.

2: Stanier 4-6-0s Class 5. John Jennison and David Clarke.

3: Gresley 4-6-2 A4 Class. David Clarke

4: Maunsell 4-6-0 King Arthur Class. Peter Swift. 2005.

5: Riddles Class 6/7 Standard Pacifics. David Clarke.
Mel Holley (Steam Wld, 2006 (234) 57): "Offering much, this book struggles to deliver"

6: Maunsell 4-4-0 Schools class. Peter Swift. 2006. 96 pp.
Mel Holley (Steam Wld, 2007 (238) 66) comments:"this volume is not as poor as some in the series" "Yet again this series fails to live up to what it promises tthe reader"

7: Riddles Class 9F 2-10-0. David Clarke

8: Maunsell 4-6-0 'Lord Nelson' Class. P.  Swift.