This book describes why some places had more than one station served by different railway companies and why they all eventually closed.

During the nineteenth century, many railway companies built lines that paralleled those already established by competing companies.

The thought of affecting economies was often ignored, resulting in many places having more than one station that served the same place but by a different company and route.

An obvious example is Nottingham and Leicester, where both the Midland and Great Central had large stations, with both competing for custom in their services to London.

There were many other similar examples, some of which this book examines.

Published in September 2024 by Amberley Publishing and written by Patrick Bennett, this soft-cover book measures around 168 mm x 246 mm, and has 96 pages and 140 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 £14.84 from Amazon.

In seven chapters, Patrick Bennett tells the story of some of Britain’s long-lost railway stations and lines. Starting with Southern Britain, he continues with the South Midlands, the South, East Anglia, Shropshire, the West Midlands, the South West, and ends with South Wales.

It seems strange that Shropshire should have been singled out, whereas all other counties are covered regionally, even though many of them lost many more miles of railway and their stations.

A common theme throughout the book is that even though the captions are quite informative, they often omit the date of the photograph.

With a little research, it could have been easily found, one such example being the image at the top-right showing the last train at Cirencester Town on 5th April 1960.

The top two photos on the left below both show Haverhill, but the accompanying text doesn’t make clear that there were two stations at Haverhill.

Also, the upper caption states it is Haverhill CVR station, which is assumed to be the Haverhill Colne Valley & Halstead Railway.

The middle left photo is also confusing as it shows a CVR locomotive, but doesn’t specify whether it is at the town’s CVR or Great Eastern Railway station.

It seems odd that the author treats Shropshire as a separate entity rather than including it in a regional chapter as with all other counties, especially as although many lines in the county lost their railway services, only two are included in the book.

The photos below show Cleobury Town on the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Railway. The text explains that this was created to transport stone from Brown Clee Hill, but neglects to explain that after 1939 it was taken over by the Admiralty for use by ammunition trains.

Despite this book describing many closures of lines and stations, for some, there is a glimmer of hope, with plans for reopening the line to Portishead near Bristol seen on the left. However, those plans will not recreate the route of the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway as seen on the right below.

Although the Beeching Report was ultimately responsible for the closure of many of Britain’s railway lines and stations, many disappeared years before the report saw the light of day, with some closed before World War II.

To produce a book documenting such railways is a challenge, especially in a book of this size. The introduction states the book tells the history of places that once had two or more stations, but now have none.

The reality is that only a few closed lines from each region are described. Brief descriptions of why and when each line was established are followed by several photographs of trains or stations on the lines.

A major criticism is the excessive use of unfamiliar acronyms without explanation. Each chapter has several sections devoted to different locations within the regions, but the descriptions place more emphasis on the railways that served those places.

Instead of listing the regions in the Contents List, it would have been more useful to have listed the locations, as that is how they are treated in the book.

Many places mentioned are small and not well-known, and if some maps had been included, they would have improved the understanding of the railways being described.

As a book describing closed railway lines and stations, the book attempts to cover the whole of southern Britain, whereas its size is barely sufficient to consider one of its regions. Overall, it merits a rating of 4/5.

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

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