Campbell Highet

Campbell Highet was a professional railwayman as well as a signignificant contributor to locomotive history. His works include an autobiography: All steamed up as well as studies of Scottish railways.

Campbell Highet was the son of a medical practitioner who shared the same name. He was born in Cardonald, halfway between Paisley and Glasgow. He moved around the country with his father. Some of his childhood was spent in Wisbech and he describes not only the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway, but also the long journeys north to Scotland by overnight train from Peterborough. Later he moved from Worcester to Reading in 1915 where he acquired half plate camera: see Rly Wld, 1965, 26, 258. Highet is probably best known as an author of railway books, but he was also a professional railwayman, latterly being Assistant District Motive Power Superintendent at Bank Hall, Liverpool. Before that he served at Nottingham, Edge Hill, Birkenhead North, Chester, Llandudno Junction and Accrington. He was apprenticed at Derby Works.

All steamed up. Oxford Publishing Co., 1975.
Foreword by Maurice W. Earley. 

The Glasgow & South Western Railway. Lingfield: Oakwood Press, 1963. 92pp. (Oakwood library of railway history, No. 59).
Stiff board covers. Reviewed Rly Wld, 1965, 26, 280.

Scottish locomotive history: 1831-1923. London: Allen & Unwin, 1970. 240pp + plates. col front
Includes a forword by Roland Bond which includes the following: In his book, to which it is a privilege and pleasure for me to write this short foreword, Campbell Highet has done much more than describe the technical features of many of the classes of locomotives which did their work in Scotland. He has written about the men who directed affairs-great names like Stroudley, the Stirlings, Dugald Drummond and John F. McIntosh, to name but a few. In moving, as so many of them did, from one railway to another their influence extended over a very wide field, often far south of the Border. And with family connections involved, fathers and sons and brothers, there was continuity of technical development, and a corresponding family likeness in the external appearance of so many Scottish engines. We are told, too, something of the history of the railways of Scotland. We are reminded of the great races to the North over the West Coast and East Coast Routes, in which the Scottish partners played so prominent a part. It was on Scottish railways that the first 4-6-0 and the first four-cylinder locomotives ran in Great Britain - forerunners of most significant developments in later years.

Wirral Railway. Lingfield: Oakwood Press,1961. 39pp. (Oakwood library of railway history, No. 17).