The age of steam is past, the heyday of Swindon Works is long gone – but the legend lives on. What made the Great Western Railway's Swindon Works iconic? Was it its worldwide reputation; perhaps its profound impact in shaping the new town of Swindon; or that it melded those who worked there into one big family? In a new and exciting format, this book, by popular railway historian Rosa Matheson, helps explain why the never-ending love story endures. With big facts and fascinating stories, it is a must read not only for ex-Works employees and their families, nor just for GWR fans and railway enthusiasts, but also for any newcomer seeking to find a good way into railway history.

This book investigates the facts behind the myths and mysteries of the Swindon Steam.

The Great Western Railway – quickly coming to be known as ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ – was once regarded as the most advanced in the world. Engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel it was initially designed to connect Bristol to London and came to develop a distinct character all of its own, one of the many reasons why it remains a much-loved and popular area of interest.This book traces its history covering topics such as the company, its engines and carriages, its engineers – including Gooch, Dean, Armstrong, Collett, Churchward and of course Brunel – as well as the battle of the gauges. Full of little-known facts and figures and with numerous photographs and memorabilia as well as a timeline, it is a tale full of record breakers and mighty achievements waiting to be retold to a modern age.

A compelling study of the influences that shape our responses to landscape, through eight modern British lives.

In 1977, the iconic Swindon Works was building locomotives. By 1986, it was shut down. In The End of the Line, Ron Bateman recounts the fight to save Swindon Works, its 3,500 jobs and the livelihood of the entire community it represented. Initially joining through the Works Training School in 1977, Ron witnessed this tragic struggle and the crushing blow dealt to the industry that had defined Swindon for generations. Combining personal recollections with information and interviews from many other insiders and railmen, this book provides the only comprehensive chronicle on the final decade of 147 years of railway engineering and a fateful milestone in the history of Swindon.

Cecil Packer was a farm labourer, a factory worker, a shepherd and a devoted family man from Wiltshire who like so many others was sent to France to fight for his country in the First World War, and never returned. Cecil survived both the Gallipoli and Somme campaigns, so for his descendants, his death on the Western Front when his battalion was far from the front line was a mystery as well as a tragedy. Alan Gaunt, whose wife Shirley is Cecil's great-granddaughter, set about researching Cecil's humble but interesting life and finally established the tragic circumstances of his accidental death in December 1916 at the age of 31."This is not the story of a traditional hero in the mould of Nelson or Wellington but that of a village shepherd, a local man who did not come from the nobility or the ranks of the nation's leaders but simply loved his family and died in the service of his country."ÿ