A look back at Class 40 locomotives

Looking Back at Class 24 & 25 Locomotives takes a closer look at these plucky and versatile Type 2 locos in a full-colour photographic album.

A photographic look back at an iconic loco of the British railways, reflecting the varied work carried out by the Class 40.

In this superb collection of colour photographs Martin Hart records the iconic 1960s diesels built by English Electric. This is the first volume in the Amberley Railway Archive series.

For the past three decades, historian and archivist Forrest Lamar Cooper has written a regular column for Mississippi Magazine about unusual, fascinating aspects of the state's history, culture, products, and people. Whether describing the Jubilee Beverage Company of Jackson, the origins of the Mississippi State Fair, a Mississippi veteran who fought at Iwo Jima, or Biloxi's Riviera Hotel, Cooper's “Looking Back” columns are thoroughly researched and written with verve and clarity. Looking Back Mississippi: Towns and Places collects thirty-nine of Cooper's best essays on the various cities, towns, dwellings, parks, and institutions of historical resonance. Covering all corners of the state, from the mid-1800s to the 1930s, the volume offers an engaging, convivial alternative history of Mississippi, one that emphasizes the obscure and small-scale over the big picture. Each short essay is accompanied by photographic and illustrative postcards from Cooper's private collection. These postcards and other memorabilia give delightful visual clarity to Cooper's historical accounts of towns as far north as Hernando and as coastal as Pass Christian, from the Delta to the Pine Belt. Cooper focuses on Mississippi places, and the people and events that made them famous. Much of the architecture and even the terrain—as with the Gulf Coast's once legendary orange groves—has disappeared, making Cooper's postcards invaluable resources for understanding and visualizing what no longer exists. Looking Back Mississippi provides a treasure trove of history and insight into long-vanished corners of the state.

Many critical shifts in concepts of time and society's consciousness of modernity were derived from the railway and World Standard Time in the nineteenth century. These innovations restructred the way people viewed the world and dealt with "public" and "private" time. The forward, projectile motion along a linear track mimicked the passage of public chronological time. Conversely, the train also invoked a private, nostalgic view of tim as the traveler was yanked from his/her traditional view of the space/time continuum via the train's velocity. Travelers observed the landscape "disappear" in their backward glance from the window--although the landscape and interior compartment's space remained stagnant. This optical illusion caused passengers to perceive the world in new ways. Thus, the train unveils a conflictive blend of nostalgia and progress in the River Plate, as these countries move forward, but look back.

During the mid-1980s, in a drive for greater efficiency, British Rail required another heavy freight locomotive, some of the earlier Type 5 freight locomotives being outdated and no longer regarded as suitable for heavy freight duties. The new Class 60 locomotive was to be constructed using lessons learned from the Classes 56 and 58. Six organisations were invited to tender but only three did so. The contract was awarded to Brush Electrical Machines (today, Brush Traction, part of the Wabtec Rail Group) for a powerful 60mph Type 5 Co-Co design, which resulted in an order being placed for one hundred Class 60 diesel-electric locomotives. Using original research from the National Archives, British Rail Class 60 Locomotives is a high illustrated guide that explores the commissioning of the Class 60s and their construction, testing and running. It undertakes an in-depth technical appraisal of the class and details names, liveries, modifications and preservation and includes the 'Super 60' refurbishment programme and acquisition of ten Class 60s for Colas Rail UK, bringing the timeline to the present day. Of interest to all diesel loco enthusiasts and railway modellers, thie book is lavishly illustrated with 280 colour and black & white photographs, many previously unpublished.