Steve Liptrot

Railways have been around for about 200 years and while the majority have flourished and are still in existence today, many no longer remain. Some of these have completely disappeared, especially those associated with the transportation of industrial commodities such as coal. In some instances, passenger railways have not faired much better than their industrial counterparts and the Beeching Report led to the closure of 2,300 railway stations and over 5,000 of track miles in Britain in the 1960s. When railways are closed their infrastructure such as track, station buildings, signal boxes etc. are generally removed and over time the land is repurposed for houses, retail footpaths, cycleways or simply returned to open land. However, this is not always the case and sometimes the removal of the railway infrastructure is not undertaken in a diligent manner resulting in items such as track, buildings or redundant equipment being left behind. In addition, railway artifacts such as locomotives or rolling stock may be deliberately left in situ to mark the history of what has gone before.Steve Liptrot offers a fascinating pictorial history of what railways have left behind in Britain and a selection of European countries.

Worksop has until recent times been at the heart of the East Midlands coal-mining and power industries, creating a vital rail hub linking the numerous Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire collieries with the power stations along the Trent Valley that formed the backbone of the UK’s electricity generation capability.While there has been a massive downturn in freight train movements through the region since the demise of coal mining and coal-fired power stations, there remains a fascinating set of train movements through Worksop and its environs. In particular, many of the early types of Diesel-Electric main line locomotives, such as Class 20s, 31s, 37s and 47s, can still be observed. These form an interesting contrast with more modern traction of the Class 66, most commonly used in the East Midlands area.With a wealth of previously unpublished images, this book provides a visual record of the changing locomotive movements in and around Worksop in recent years.