There are five new railway stations opening in the West Midlands this year. Two in fact have already opened, last week (Darlaston and Willenhall). Three more will open after Easter. Last Friday i visited the two new stations, the day after they opened. There were still quite a few enthusiasts around, checking the new stations out. I met a YouTuber who was doing a video on them and we had a chat. A really nice guy.
This excellent book by Piers Connor approaches the subject from a novel direction: instead of a standard history of the London Underground network and its rolling stock, this book instead describes the development of the many technologies that went into the London Underground train as we know it and how the technologies all fitted together. So, starting with the earliest electric traction in the first Underground trains we see how electric motors and control systems, bogies, bodywork, brakes et cetera developed over the decades.
The book is well illustrated throughout, with a number of diagrams that explain how the various systems work. The London Underground was the first deep-level underground system in the world but it owes so much to early developments in the United States as well as decades of evolution and different paths (not all of which worked). Much development work is ongoing and the book is very up-to-date with the latest details of the future tube trains which will finally replace my beloved 1972 Stock in the late 2020s (perhaps).
At the weekend i headed back up north, to Cheshire again. I haven't been to Winsford for a number of years, to be honest it wasn't high on my list of places to re-visit but i needed to get some up-to-date imagery of the station. I did think of walking to Middlewich but in the end decided not to as it was a little too far away. As Winsford is pretty hilly, i got plenty of exercise!
You can see my Winsford photos here.
I have already seen the proofs of course but it is not until you hold the finished printed book in your hands that you truly feel that the project is over. I received complimentary copies of my second book a couple of days ago. The book is a survey of the railway stations of Warwickshire and took a lot of work to complete last year, including a 5am train from Birmingham in order to get to Polesworth for the one train a day!
It will be available on sale in all good bookshops from next month, though you can buy it online now!
A man tries to find out how his wife died eight years before. What may have seemed an accident now seems to be mixed up in something murkier, with paid off witnesses and big business corruption.
It takes a while to warm up but when it does you are rewarded by a complicated but logical plot.
With my second book now just weeks away from hitting the shelves, focus can turn to book 3. This is also on railway stations, but this time in the West Midlands. My publisher sent me a draft of the cover of the book yesterday. I don't think it will be released until the late Summer or early Autumn but the cover looks pretty good.
