"A compilation of photos taken in the difficult period . . . when LT and London Country were plagued with maintenance problems. A valuable record." —West Somerset Railway AssociationContinuing with images from transport photographer Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the second half of the 1970s, when both London Transport and London Country were still struggling to keep services going. This resulted both from being plagued by a shortage of spare pa...

A pictorial history of buses and coaches of the period, drawn from a British transport photographer's vast collection.British Buses and Coaches in the 1960s is an overview of the bus and coach scene during a decade of great social and economic change in Britain's history. This volume looks at the interesting and varied number of bus and coach operators that still existed, before and just after the formation of the National Bus Company in 1968.With ...

The renowned transport photographer and author of British Railways in Transition looks at municipal operators in England and Wales in the 1960s.Going back to the very first horse-bus or tram operations in Victorian times, many towns and cities throughout Britain had such operators, owned and run by the town or city councils. Most of them had tramway systems, many of which were replaced by trolleybuses from the 1920s onwards. In turn, after the Second World...

This book looks at the wonderful variety of buses and coaches operated by British Electric Traction group fleets in the 1960s, featuring previously unpublished photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives.Not only did these fleets, which served most of England and Wales, have a splendid variety of British-built buses and coaches with chassis manufactured by the likes of AEC, Crossley, Daimler, Dennis, Guy and Leyland with bodywork by such firms as Park Royal, Weymann, Metro-Cammell, Eas...

JIM BLAKE's second volume of his photographs featuring the London Underground cover the period from 1985, shortly after the Thatcher regime's destruction of London Transport and its re-birth as London Underground Ltd., to 2021 when the Northern Line gained its new branch from Kennington to Battersea Power Station. This was a turbulent time in the system's history, encompassing the withdrawal of the last pre-war passenger rolling stock (in 1988) and then the abolition of two-person operated...

Using photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the turbulent period in the history of London's buses immediately after London Transport lost its Country Buses and Green Line Coaches to the recently-formed National Bus Company, under their new subsidiary company, London Country Bus Services Ltd.The new entity inherited a largely elderly fleet of buses from London Transport, notably almost 500 RT-class AEC Regent double-deckers, of which replacement was already und...

An extensively illustrated history of the transition from steam to diesel and electric traction, and the last few decades before privatization.Jim Blake took a huge number of pictures capturing both the dramatic changes and decline of the railways pre-1997, both in the London area where he lived and around the country. This book provides a photographic history of the period, covering all aspects of the railway and its operations. It portrays the process of coming t...

LONDON'S FAMOUS RT-TYPE BUSES were an iconic symbol of our Capital city in the 1950s, before being superseded by the Routemasters. Most were built between 1947 and 1954 to replace worn-out pre-war and wartime buses, as well as our remaining trams. More than 7,000 were built in all and although London Transport favored A.E.C. chassis, which the first batches of RTs had, so pressing was the need for new buses that not enough could be supplied by that manufacturer to match demand. Therefore L...

LONDON'S HISTORIC, iconic Underground railway system in the period from 1968 to 1985 was a very different place to what it is in the 2020s. Much of its rolling stock dated from before World War Two, and with the exception of the new Victoria Line and the isolated Woodford to Hainault shuttle, trains were all two-person operated as the 1970s dawned. Transport photographer Jim Blake recorded most of the system on film before it would change forever, concentrating on the older rolling stock a...

The story of a turning-point year in Britain's bus industry, with numerous photos and "extensive and informative" captions ( Trolleybus Magazine).1967 was the year that preceded the end of an era, when private and semi-nationalized companies operated the bus networks in Britain. After 1967, the network was never the same again, with the formation of the National Bus Company in 1968.The NBC was a very bland organization compared to the colorful bus ...

This fascinating and informative book looks at the Tilling Group of bus companies during the 1960s. These operated approximately half of the inter-urban and rural bus services in England and Wales, and were nationalized by Clement Attlee's Labour Government in 1948 under the control of the British Transport Commission. Ownership passed to the Transport Holding Company Ltd in 1963, though the fleets remained under Tilling Group control.During the period covered by this book, the operators w...

JIM BLAKE'S latest book on London's buses may come as a surprise, since he usually concentrated on older vehicles in the fleet. However, the unpopular, unsuccessful DMs and DMSs were still part of London Transport's history, so he recorded them too, particularly towards the end of the short working lives.Forced by central government to buy "off-the-peg" standard manufacturers' products, rather than their own tried and trusted designs, LT opted for Daimler Fleetlines for their first...