A popular feature of our publishing programme for a number of years has been our reprints of selected titles from the famous Ian Allan Publishing abc series that first appeared in the 1940s.
These modestly priced reprints are welcomed by both the enthusiasts who may have used them when they first came out and also by those not around at the time they were being published. They provide wonderful, nostalgic snapshots of a railway scene which has long since disappeared.
The latest of our abc reprints is that of the Combined Volume 1964, a time when serious inroads were being made into the numbers of steam locomotives in service, such was the remorseless march of diesel and electric traction.
By this date, in large areas of the country, places such as the West Country and East Anglia, steam locomotives were increasingly rare. Much loved types like the former GWR ?King? class had already all been retried and more remarkably even modern designs like the BR ?Standard? types were being withdrawn when heavy repairs were found necessary.
abc British Locomotives 1964 Combined Volume demonstrates that the changeover to modern traction was now gaining great momentum and that for steam enthusiasts, things would never be the same again.
