Railways and Industries in North East Wales & Deeside

Rob Shorland-Ball

Mar 2022 · Pen and Sword Transport

About this ebook

Rob Shorland-Ball's researches for this book, and several visits, convinced him that he was putting together a jigsaw of facts. No previously published account of the area have brought together these stories of iron & steel making, limestone quarrying, coal mining, terra cotta, lead mining, and the railway systems they all needed to move their products to market. There were narrow and standard gauge railways – 80 miles of tracks in the Shotton Steel Works; industrial sites like Brymbo Iron and Steel Works; and since 2003 the Airbus factory which makes 100ft long wings for Airbus 380s that are too long to be moved by rail! A jigsaw indeed and this books puts together the pieces.

About the author

Rob Shorland-Ball remembers childhood holidays in Southwold when much of the derelict Southwold Railway, which closed in 1929, could still be discovered and explored. Rob, a one-time teacher and good story teller, worked for BR and from 1987 to 1994 was Deputy Head of the National Railway Museum in York so has a good working knowledge of railways and railway history. His co-author, David Lee now in his mid-90s, has researched the history of Southwold Railway for many years and welcomed Rob's knowledge and expertise in bringing together this substantive book on the Railway. Another important contributor is the late Alan Taylor whose opening chapter and several pictures are a tribute to his interest. Rob has woven together the scholarship of David Lee and Alan Taylor to create a story of a railway which fascinated passengers while it worked, has lived on in memory, and is now being re-created by a Charitable Trust along much of its original track-bed.