Following on from his popular series examining industrial steam in regions of the UK, Gordon Edgar looks at a series of fascinating workings around the world during the final days of steam in industry. A number of globe-trotting trips in the latter part of the twentieth century and early twenty-first produced a remarkable record of steam at work in locations as varied as Germany, Austria, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Cuba, Java, India and China. With stunning, evocative photogr...

"Both thought-provoking and fun"—Paul Kindstedt, author of Cheese and CultureOne of the oldest, most ubiquitous, and beloved cheeses in the world, the history of cheddar is a fascinating one. Over the years it has been transformed, from a painstakingly handmade wheel to a rindless, mass-produced block, to a liquefied and emulsified plastic mass untouched by human hands. The Henry Fordism of cheddar production in many ways anticipated the advent of industri...

Witty and irreverent, informative and provocative, Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge is the highly readable story of Gordon Edgar's unlikely career as a cheesemonger at San Francisco's worker-owned Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. A former punk-rock political activist, Edgar bluffed his way into his cheese job knowing almost nothing, but quickly discovered a whole world of amazing artisan cheeses. There he developed a deep understanding and respect for the styles, producers, animals, ...

Following on from his popular series examining industrial steam in regions of the UK, Gordon Edgar looks at a series of fascinating workings around the world during the final days of steam in industry. Numerous globe-trotting trips in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first century by the author, and other talented photographers, has produced a remarkable record of steam at work in locations as varied as Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. With s...

The storage and ultimate disposal of redundant or worn-out railway locomotives and rolling stock is a much-overlooked subject, but is most certainly an important aspect of railway history, deserving documentation and photographic attention. Subjects covered here include locomotives and rolling stock that had already been taken out of regular service, either present at motive power depots awaiting movement for disposal, abandoned at industrial installations, or simply languishing in sidings...

Continuing his series looking at the industrial locomotives and railways of England, Wales and Scotland, Gordon Edgar looks at Greater London and the counties of Middlesex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire, a region that rapidly expanded during the twentieth century around the traditional shipping routes into London’s docklands and the numerous rail routes serving the capital, in particular from the north and west. The period of time covered by this v...

Continuing his series of regional books reviewing the industrial railways of England, Wales and Scotland, author Gordon Edgar looks at the railways of what is today Northumbria, County Durham and Teesside, covering a period of the last six decades, with an emphasis upon the former National Coal Board railways. This is the eighth volume in the series, covering an area once proudly boasting widespread coal mining, steelmaking and shipbuilding activities, as well as numerous other traditional...

The Isle of Man has a rich transport heritage and once boasted the largest narrow gauge network in Britain with eight railways and tramways. Founded in 1870 and opened in 1874, the Isle of Man Railway still connects Douglas with the ancient capital of Castletown and Port Erin. This part of the line continues in operation using several of the original steam locomotives and carriages, and Gordon Edgar’s collection of historic black-and-white archive images from the 1950s and 1960s captures t...

In this second volume in a regional series exploring industrial locomotives and railways in England, Wales and Scotland, we move on to Southern England and the West Country. This region, stretching from Kent to Cornwall, was blessed with many varied and intriguing industrial railway systems, which served power stations, collieries, paper mills, docks, quarries, brickworks and the lesser-visited military establishments. Indeed, some of the country’s last working industrial steam locomotives...

The drama of the Cumbrian countryside combined with some of the most magnificent steam locomotives to be found anywhere in Britain. This follow-up to Gordon Edgar’s Cumbrian Traction is a collection of the author’s own work and that of other eminent railway photographers. The types, classes of locomotive and the operating companies represented are as varied as the landscape, which ranges from the drama of the fells to the windswept coastline, covering the lines radiating through the former...

This is the ninth volume in the ten-part series of regional books examining the industrial railways of England, Scotland and Wales. Like elsewhere in Britain, changes have been far-reaching in industry, and Scotland has certainly suffered considerably in recent decades with the loss of its traditional coal mining, steel and manufacturing industries, especially many of those that were once located around its Central Belt. The diversity of the locomotives and the railways that once served in...

Arguably one of the most dramatic railway lines in northern England, the Settle - Carlisle runs through remote, scenic regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines. Starting from the town of Settle, it crosses the Ribblehead viaduct on its way to the Scottish border. Threatened with closure in the 1970s, it was saved by campaigners and is now an important diversionary route from the West Coast Main Line, popular with tourists and locals alike.