SPECIAL – The Middleton Railway – Both Volumes

Description

This is a limited time offer to purchase both volumes of the Middleton Railway history books at a special discount.

Volume 1: The Pre-Preservation Era, by Sheila Bye

“The most comprehensive history of the Railway that has ever been produced”

This book tells the story of the Worlds oldest continuously operating railway from its opening in 1758 until partial closure and preservation in 1960.

MRT Archivist Sheila Bye tells the amazing story of this historic railway and how it pioneered the use of steam locomotives before the more famous George Stephenson built one of his own.

Read how the railway was once owned by the famous Tetley brewing family and ended up being a private railway linking the nationalised railway system with a National Coal Board mine.

Volume 2: Six Decades of Preservation, by Ian Smith

An account of the first six decades of them life of the Middleton Railway as one of Britain’s heritage railways told by a member of the Railway who was involved in much of this history.

The book tells the story of how a group of volunteers took an absolutely worm out industrial railway without even a garden shed as covered accommodation, to the thriving heritage railway of today with well-maintained track, museum and display hall, comprehensively equipped workshops and running and carriage sheds.

It is a remarkable story populated by some equally remarkable characters of whom the most noteworthy was the redoubtable R. F. (Fred) Youell who was the driving force behind the saving of the Middleton Railway in 1960.