Irwell Press

Part of Tony Wright’s on-going series of bookazines this one concentrates on the Class 47 diesel-electrics, surely BR’s most successful and most numerous mixed traffic post-steam class. Introduced coincidentally with the first withdrawals of the A4 Pacifics at the end of 1962, the first batch played second-string to the Deltics on the ECML, with some success. As the numbers grew (eventually to over 500!) they became ubiquitous on the national network. The Class has rejoiced in a number of labels, including Brush Type 4s, Hawker Siddeleys, Class 47s (under TOPS) and even ‘Duffs’ among enthusiasts. Using photographs entirely of his own taking, the author presents a personal observation of this long-lived class, from the original (and most-attractive) two-tone green, through to BR corporate blue and many of the myriad liveries beyond. The geographical spread is as comprehensive as the author’s travels allowed, including Scotland, deepest Wales, the South West, the North East, North West, East Anglia, The Midlands (both East and West) the Home Counties, London and the South. Several remain in operation with private companies, well over fifty years after their introduction. 

Irwell Press softback Bookazine Diesel Dawn volume 2 covering the Swindon-built Warship class diesel hydraulics, D800-D832 and D866-D870.
The startling first impression these Swindon Warships made when they burst upon a steam-dominated railway in 1958 can hardly be exaggerated. Powerful, fast and above all lightweight, THIS was the Type 4 that the Western Region had wanted and fought so hard to get. Sparkling clean, in an elegant livery with stirring red and silver nameplates, they were glamorous, mysterious even, with that striking sloping front and subtle curves, unhindered by design clutter. This second Diesel Dawn deals with the thirty-eight Warships built from 1958.

Irwell Press softback Bookazine Diesel Dawn volume 3 covering the two types of Warship class locomotives built by the North British Locomotive Company, D600-D604 and D833-D865.
Various Warships were built, British Railways Western Region built their own at Swindon (Diesel Dawn 2) and private locomotive builders North British Limited of Glasgow built the rest. The firm was responsible for two types, their own design of heavy, twelve wheel D600s (only five of these, to considerable relief in some quarters) which a BR Board largely foisted on the Western Region and thirty-three more in the D800 series which were more or less indistinguishable from the Swindon locomotives. These North British Warships, D833 to D865, worked turn and turn about with their Swindon brethren on express passenger trains and then freights throughout the 1960s.

Irwell Press softback Bookazine Diesel Dawn volume 4 covering the Diesel Multiple Units, saviours of many suburban and cross-country routes, some of which are now busier than ever!
This account is intended to give an overview of the types of first-generation Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) trains and railbuses that could be seen on BR from the 1950s to the 1980s. Their widespread introduction across the country came to be one of the great pillars of the Modernisation of Britain’s railways throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Put into service in a number of ‘schemes’ (each scheme covering part of the country) the new trains – bright, shiny and modern with wonderful panoramic views – replaced thousands of steam engines. For decades they dominated the railway passenger scene, becoming so commonplace as to go almost unnoticed as memories of steam faded.

Part of Tony Wright's series of bookazines this time more specific in its geography and time-scale: the East Coast Main Line and the years 1960-1981. As the locos made their transition from green to blue livery the mighty ECML, which was not electrified until much later, retained much of its basic infrastructure especially the splendid signals and signal boxes and the distinctive three-arch overbridges. It was as if the Gresley Pacifics, WDs and 9Fs had merely gone absent for a day!
Colour throughout - 80 pages - card covers

If ever a line could be called an evergreen favourite it is the Somerset & Dorset, so quintessentially English in its achingly beautiful settings, its charming stations and the blasting hill climbing efforts of its steam locomotives. All of it unsullied by diesels right up to its final demise in 1966. It was a line like no other, by turns a dozing branch, by turns a main line with double headed named expresses running the length of the country.
The author worked on the footplate on the Southern Region in the South West and the S&D has been close to his heart ever since.

A personal colour odyssey by an author captivated by steam, like most of us, at an early, highly impressionable age and in his case the introduction was grander than most – the Royal Train passing through Henley-in-Arden in April 1950 headed, memorably by two Castles.
Subsequent maturity and possession of a decent camera allowed a rich harvest of colour portraits of many aspects of Western Region steam working in the 1960s, from filthy lumbering 2-8-0s, to fussing pannier tanks and gleaming Kings and Castles.