Steam in the West Midlands & Wales

For a century or more the steam train was a feature of most of the British landscape. Some railway photographers made this relationship of railway and British scenery the starting point of their camera approach, none to greater effect than B. J. Ashworth. As he writes in his introduction to this pictorial record, 'railways and landscape were more or Ies9 inseparable in my mind.' As post-war standardisation reduced the variety of locomotives to portray, the inducement to take still greater care over the setting strengthened. Moreover, Mr. Ashworth primarily operated in some of the most attractive country in these islands for his theme — the Cotswolds, the forest country west of the Severn and the Welsh valleys and hills. This volume collects the best of his work, both in colour and in black and white, to present not only a fascinating record of the final years of steam working on some of the country's less frequently photographed branches and main lines, but also an enticing panorama of the British countryside.