This book illustrates why photographers are drawn to Cumbria to capture trains in stunning landscapes running through the Lake District, the Pennine Fells, and the Cumbrian Coast.

The railway map of Cumbria is now much different from many years ago, with the abandonment of the branches from Carlisle to Port Glasgow and Silloth, in the southwest of the county around Workington and Whitehaven, and the elimination of the erstwhile Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway.

In what remains of the railway scene in Cumbria, Neil Gibson provides an excellent selection of images captured over several decades.

Published in May 2024 by Amberley Publishing and written by Neil Gibson, this soft-cover book measures around 16.5 cm x 23.4 cm, and has 96 pages and 180 colour photographs.

It has a published price of £15.99, but at the time of writing, it can be purchased for £14.39 from Amberley Publishing and for £13.83 from Amazon.

There are few counties in England that can match Cumbria for the spectacular scenery seen to good effect in Neil Gibson’s superb collection of colour photographs.

They include a wide range of trains, from block freight and express passenger to locomotive-hauled trains and diesel multiple unit pacers, but all have the common theme of the train being part of the landscape.

In a short introduction, the author reveals his background in photography and his love of Cumbria, followed by five chapters illustrating trains on the West Coast Main Line, the Cumbrian Coast Line, the Settle and Carlisle, the Windermere branch, and the Tyne Valley line.

The book is characterised by excellent photographic composition and supported by equally superb reproduction, as seen in the pages below.

These are from the chapter on the West Coast Main Line and show how the author has used the county’s scenery to enhance illustrations of the line’s freight traffic.

They also highlight the book’s failure that pages do not identify the chapters but just repeat the book’s title.

The largest chapter in the book is devoted to the Cumbrian Coast line, no doubt because of many different scenic locations and a more varied selection of freight traffic, especially trains of low-level nuclear waste to Workington Docks and Sellafield.

Further examples of the scenic locations on the Cumbrian Coast Line are seen in the images below, where the Class 37s in the photos seem more photogenic than the locomotive types normally seen on the West Coast Main Line.

No book on railways through Cumbria would be complete with examples from the Settle and Carlisle, which matches, if not exceeds, the stunning scenery of the West Coast Main Line.

Dent viaduct seen at the bottom right nearly matches the magnificence of its more famous neighbour, the Ribblehead Viaduct, which is in North Yorkshire. Elsewhere in this chapter, the author has captured some of the charter trains that are regular visitors to the line.

Throughout the book, Neil Gibson’s eye for detail and skill in composition shows through. Often, the railway is a mere detail in the overall scene, but he still captures the essence of his subject. Surprisingly, given the area’s popularity for steam-hauled charter trains, there is a complete lack of examples. The book is also disappointing in that each page carries the book’s title rather than the particular chapter, and neither is there a contents list.

Other than for the omnipresent overhead electric wires, images in the 25 pages of the West Coast Main Line chapter appear similar to those taken in the 18 pages of the Settle and Carlisle.

Those two chapters are separated by the 42 pages of the Cumbrian Coast, often with different types of traffic seen on the other main lines.

It is a pity that there are not more photographs of the Windermere branch or the Tyne Valley line, as these have just six pages between them, and there is a distinct lack of variety in the photos on the four pages of the Windermere branch.

Overall, those criticisms are outweighed by the author’s composition skills and the stunning landscapes, and the book deserves a rating of 4.5/5.

The book is available to purchase from Amazon and from Amberley Publishing.

We would like to thank Amberley Publishing for providing us with a copy of the book for review.