The Making of a Railway

The Great Central Railway built its line from Nottingham to London Marylebone between 1894 and 1899. Throughout those five years, a young Leicester photographer, S.W.A. Newton, made use of the wide variety of activity, of scenery and of character provided by the construction (and later, the operation) of the last main line to practise his craft. The resulting work is unique, in its method as much as in its subject, for through his photographs Newton shows us exactly how a railway was built (in all its aspects) and the men who built it and ran it. L.T.C. Rolt's description of the background and surrounding circumstances of this milestone in railway history and his commentaries provide the perfect complement to the pictures, and both combine to form a rare photographic documentary of great historical interest.