Author(s): MAGGS COLIN

New Releases | History

Most people are under a misapprehension: the Rocket was not the first steam engine. Quite a few were built before it, but Stephenson's engine was the first successful steam locomotive. Colin Maggs tells the history of the steam engine from pre-Rocket days to British Railways building Evening Star, the last main line locomotive, through to the preservation movement and even new build locomotives of extinct classes such as the Tornado. This is also the story of the rolling stock, the 'train'. The early first-class coaches were based on a stagecoach design, while some second-class coaches had no glass in the windows and passengers wore fine-gauge goggles to avoid getting cinders in their eyes. Third-class coaches were merely open trucks - after all, why not travel in the open as passengers had done on the outside of a stagecoach?