Signalmans Twilight

Product Description

In Signalmans Twilight Adrian continues the story of his railway life in rural West Berkshire. Adrian revelled in the gentle old-world atmosphere & seized every opportunity on duty & off to talk to the older railwaymen many of whom had begun their careers on the GWR in 1919
- 21 some of whom had served in the trenches with the Wiltshire Regiment in 1916
- 18 & others of whom had worked for the Midland & South Western Junction Railway in 1913 on to 1921 when we took over the Great Western as they put it. He visited other signal boxes rode the footplates of goods trains & express trains alike. Signalmans Twilight recalls the openness of the railway. Adrian could go wherever he liked on the railway & was welcomed
- even riding in the Track Testing Car behind Sudeley Castle at 97 mph. The book recalls the skill & commitment of the railwaymen which was not undermined by their allowing Adrian into their workplaces & onto their engines. He tells the amazing story of how Signalman Abrahams saved what would have been a fatal train crash
- just as he was about to start to demonstrate a new hymn he had learned for next Sundays service. Adrians admiration for the oldhand railwaymen knew no bounds. Then came modernisation dieselisation & station closures under Dr Beechings Axe. Adrian describes how he tried single-handedly to save Challow station only to earn a severe reprimand from high authority. The Axe fell & destroyed not only the stations of the Vale but a happy settled way of life.