The Race to the North: Rivalry & Record-Breaking in the Golden Age of Stream

David Wragg

Jan 2013 · Pen and Sword

About this ebook

In the late nineteenth century, some of Britains leading main-line railway companies threw caution to the winds in an attempt to provide the fastest passenger express services between London and Scotland. These became known as the races to the north. There were two phases, in 1888 and 1895, and they spurred the building of new bridges across the Firth of Forth and Firth of Tay.David Wraggs gripping, detailed narrative tells the story of this epic engineering and commercial competition. He concentrates on the determination of the railway companies to see who could provide the fastest schedule between London and the main Scottish cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen.Casting aside their early policy of co-existence on these prestigious and lucrative routes, the West Coast and East Coast companies were drawn into a period of intense, highly publicized rivalry as they sought to dominate the market. David Wragg gives an insight into the conduct of the well-publicized highs and tragic lows of this dramatic story the extension of the lines to the far north, the building of the Tay and Forth bridges including the collapse of the first Tay bridge with 72 fatalities and the repeated bids by the companies to cut the journey times.While he describes the public side of this fascinating story, David Wragg fills in the background, which is no less interesting the pioneering engineering of the steam age, the massive construction projects, the cut-throat battle for passengers and freight and the deep inter-company rivalries that drove the rapid development of the railways during the Victorian period.

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About the author

David Wragg has published several highly praised books on railway history, and he produced a textbook for the old Chartered Institute of Transport. He has also written on railways for the Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator, The Scotsman, and the Yorkshire Post. His Wartime on the Railways was reviewed by Rail as 'very readable' and by Railways Illustrated as 'as a fascinating insight and also an important record', and Railways Illustrated chose his Southern Railway Handbook as 'Book of the Month'.

One of his most recent publications is The Historical Dictionary of Railways in the British Isles. He is also well known as a writer of military history and provide the British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand material for On Seas Contested- The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War, published in 2010 by the Naval Institute Press in the United States and which won the Stonebooks award for "The Best Non-Fiction book on World War II" to have been published that year.'