Lokomotywy spalinowe - British Railways (od 1980): książki

British Rail in the 1980s and 1990s- Diesel Locomotives and DMUs

The 1980s and 1990s were exciting times for British Rail. For many years British Rail had been structured into regions and the livery for rolling stock consisted of blue and grey or just plain blue. Now, however, the railways of Britain were entering a new chapter of sectorisation, restructuring and ultimately privatisation.

We were introduced to exciting new bold liveries like Network SouthEast's red, white, grey and blue, and InterCity's two-tone grey, red and white livery complete with stylish Silver Swallow logo.
The freight companies also introduced new liveries; mostly a two-tone grey with logo to denote which sub-sector owned it and RES (Rail Express Systems) later introduced a striking red livery with blue and grey flashes.

New locomotives, coaches, diesel and electric multiple units all entered service across the country, finished in the new liveries of the recently formed sectors.
Other rolling stock moved on across the network and over time received new liveries for their new work.

In this book, the first of two, Kenny Barclay shares some of his collection of photographs of diesel locomotives and diesel multiple units taken at various locations across the country during the 1980s and 1990s.
Being an employee of British Rail at this time, Kenny Barclay had regular access to a number of depots and railway works across the network where many of his photographs were taken. This book collects some of his finest photographs documenting the fascinating changes across the network at this time.

The Blue Diesel Era

Launched in 1964, with the XP64 rake of Class 48 and coaches, the era of Rail Blue was to dominate Britain's main-line railways for almost two decades until the sectorisation of the 1980s. By the end of steam in August 1968, increasing numbers of locomotives, units and coaches were appearing in the new livery, so much so that the final steam specials operated in August 1968 included blue and grey coaching stock within the formation.

For the modeller, the BR blue era has its attractions in that it straddles the period of the late 1960s when steam and green diesels predominated through to the era of sectorisation in the mid-1980s. Moreover, although not all classes of first-generation of diesel and electric locomotives and rolling stock survived to be repainted in blue, there were odd examples of most classes repainted.

"The Blue Diesel Era" is a compilation of photographs, all previously unpublished, portraying the operation of blue-liveried locomotives and rolling stock throughout the BR network in this period along with detailed captions together with an informative linking narrative.

The Privatisation Classes - A Pictorial Survey of Diesel and Electric Locomotives and Units Since 1994 (Modern Traction Profiles )

An album of photographs taken by David Cable, a well-regarded author of several books covering trains throughout much of the world.
This book looks at the types of locomotives and multiple units that have been introduced into the UK since 1994, when the government privatised British Rail into a series of privately operated franchises.

An incredible forty-one classes have been, or are shortly to be introduced, the majority being passenger units. The book shows these classes in a variety of colour schemes adopted by the franchisees.
Photographs, in the main, are taken in the South East of England, which is where the great majority of these new trains operate, with the surroundings being given as much prominence as possible.

Diesels in the Western Region

The Great Western Railway was always a little different to the rest of the railways, and that was still the position when in 1955 British Railways announced their Modernisation Plan that would see steam replaced by diesels and electrics.
The rest of the railway regions opted for diesel-electric locos but the Western would be different, opting for diesel-hydraulics.

The first entered service in 1957 and by 1964 six different classes were introduced. Unfortunately there were problems with them all, which were largely solved as experience was gained, but the BRB was in favour of standardisation using the diesel-electric type and they saw the Western hydraulics as non-standard, which resulted in their early withdrawal from service by 1977.

This book of mostly unpublished colour pictures taken by George Woods shows them in service from 1966 to 2019, and also includes the Class 50 locos that became their replacements.