Transport Books

Buses Yearbook 2025 follows a proven format with a mixture of articles on current and historic developments, strictly factual ones and others of a ...

First published for Christmas 1963, the Buses Yearbook offers a mix of chapters and photo features on matters topical and nostalgic. These include ...

Britain’s Preserved Railways The preserved heritage museum railways of Britain are thriving. There is nostalgia for the steam locomotives of a bygo...

British Buses Since 1950: Trendsetting Designs Bus design has certainly evolved in the seven decades since 1950, but it has not been a steady proc...

Alexander Dennis Buses Three of the best-known names in the history of British bus building, Alexander, Dennis and Plaxton, have survived the uncer...

The Off-Road Survival Handbook You’re in the middle of the jungle and your 4x4 has just careened into a steep gully with mud clogging your tyres… w...

Greater Manchester Transport: A Darker Shade of Orange Great change was afoot for Manchester’s buses in the 1970s. The region’s long-established mu...

HSTs: Around Britain: From 1990 to the Present Day For almost 50 years, High Speed Trains (HSTs) have been the mainstay for express services for ma...

Class 50s During the mid-1960s, British Rail (BR) was looking to introduce a high-powered diesel locomotive to improve services on the West Coast M...

London Bus Routes One by One: 1 100 Though they seem as immutable and traditional as the city they serve, London’s bus routes are always changing....

British Rail Shunters: From Corporate Blue to Sectorisation The role of British Rail’s (BR) diesel shunters was increasingly threatened by the la...

Land Rover Series III The Series III Land Rover, an updated Series IIA, was launched in 1971 and offered an amalgamation of cosmetic and engineeri...

Class 33s In 1960, the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company built a class of 98 locomotives, later to be designated Class 33s. They were c...

Japan’s Railways: Hokkaido to Chubu Japan’s first railway opened between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872. Its railways were nationalised in the early 19...

Irish Railways: The Last 60 Years By the end of the 1950s, steam had already mostly disappeared from passenger work in the Republic of Ireland, yet...

Bradford Trolleybuses: The Early Years and Jubilee Celebrations Bradford trolleybuses were the first and the last of their kind in the UK – introdu...

London Bus Routes One by One: 301–969 In times of old, the numbers 300–499 were restricted to the green buses of the London Transport Country Area,...

Rossendale Transport to Rosso: The Last 10 Years of Municipal Buses Motor bus operation in the Rossendale Valley boroughs of Haslingden and Rawtens...

London Bus Routes One by One: A10–X140 This fifth and final London bus routes volume looks at the route numbers with letter prefixes. They derive f...

Devon’s Railways: North and East of the County Following the routes of the two main lines that enter Devon from the east, as well as exploring the ...

East Coast Main Line Locomotive Haulage The East Coast Main Line (ECML) runs from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, with branches to Leeds...

Low-Floor Single-Deckers In the 1980s, a new breed of accessible bus was being developed, with stepless entrances and flat floors. These were firs...

Bradford Trolleybuses: The Later Years and Closure After every rise, there comes a fall, and for Bradford’s trolleybuses their demise began soon a...

Class 66/0 In the late 1990s, most of the current locomotives in use on the national network were becoming very tired and evermore unreliable. It w...

Class 73s Built in the 1960s, the Class 73s were primarily used on the Southern Region, owing to their ability to operate from either a diesel engi...

Bristol Lodekka NOTE: This book is a re-issue of the much-loved title Bristol Lodekka in colour. Lodekka buses first appeared in service in the l...

Class 442: The Wessex Electrics First introduced in the late 1980s, the Class 442s were like nothing that had been seen before in terms of Southern...

Japan’s Railways: Kinki to Kyushu At the start of the Menji Era, Japan emerged from its years of self-imposed isolation and quickly modernised. Par...

Class 47s: Inverness to Newquay 1986–87 In the mid-1980s, the winds of change were blowing through British Rail and often not for the good; the pac...

London Bus Routes One by One: 101–200 Following on from London Bus Routes One by One: 1–100, this volume takes a look at the next 100 routes in Tra...

London Bus Routes One by One: 201–300 Following on from London Bus Routes One by One: 101–200, this volume looks at the highest numbers of the bloc...

Low-Floor Double-Deckers In just under 25 years, double-deck buses in the UK have undergone a transformation. Every double-decker in standard servi...

London Transport 1949–74 NOTE: This is a paperback reissue of the much-loved Twenty-Five Years of London Transport: 1949–74. London Transport was f...

Class 47s: Jack Of All Trades In 1962, construction of the first Class 47 began – the first of many. These ubiquitous locomotives were very popular...

Grand Central Grand Central is an innovative and pioneering railway open-access operator with a relatively short, but varied history. Beginning ope...

British Rail Shunters: The Final Years By the beginning of the 1990s, the variety that once characterised British Rail’s (BR) shunter fleet had all...

Land Rover Series One 1948–58 The Land Rover was a post-war marvel, a vehicle that helped change the face of motoring on and off-road around the w...

BR: From Green to Blue A fascinating but much overlooked era for the modern traction enthusiast is the changeover from the old British Railways gr...

Electrostar: Capital Commuter At the turn of the millennium, a large percentage of the passenger services around London and the south-east were ope...

Class 56s and 58s Designed specifically for heavy freight operations in the UK, British Rail’s Class 56 was introduced in 1976–84. The first 30 of ...

Class 31s Perhaps overshadowed by more ‘exotic’ locomotives, the Class 31s played a significant part in British Railways’ Modernisation Plan. Inten...

Class 66: 5/6/9 In the late 1990s, English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) was having great success with its Class 66s, and Freightliner, which...

Class 66: 3/4/7/8 In the late 1990s, English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) had led the way with its Class 66s. As other operators followed suit...

Germany’s Railways Germany was re-unified in 1990. For the country’s rail system, the complex task of unifying two networks with very different rol...

Yorkshire Dales Buses The West Yorkshire Road Car Company’s routes from Skipton and Ilkley up into Wharfedale, Wensleydale and Swaledale are some ...

British Multiple Units Multiple units are the unsung heroes of the modern railway system. Their many advantages include higher capacity, less trac...

Class 57s The Class 57 diesel locomotive was an outgrowth of the tremendously successful and iconic Class 47. Rebuilt from redundant Class 47s by B...