In this book, the famous railway photographer, the late Derek Cross, takes a journey along the West Coast route from London to Carlisle, illustrating trains from the steam age through to modern traction in many settings, from urban conurbations to the remote landscapes of the Northern Fells.

There are five chapters titled: ‘The London& Birmingham‘, ‘The Grand Junction and Ramifications’ covering the route between Newton Junction on the Liverpool & Manchester line and Birmingham, ‘Welsh Incursions’ covering forays by the London & Northwestern Railway into the Welsh Marches and South Wales, ‘North Lancashire’, and ‘Cumbria’.

Published in December 2023 by Amberley Publishing and written by Derek Cross, this soft-cover book measures around 165 mm x 234 mm and has 128 pages and 224 black-and-white photographs and two maps.

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 £9.38 from Amazon.

In his preface, Derek Cross explains the philosophy behind the characteristic style of his photography. This is followed by an extensive introduction describing his affection for his photographic locations and what prompted him to divide the book into its published format.

Each chapter has an introduction providing a brief description of the construction of the lines and the engineers who built them, contrasting Joseph Locke who opted to build his lines with its long, sweeping curves that follow the natural contours of the countryside, and the Stephensons, who followed the Roman practice of building roads in a straight line.

The images taken from the London to Birmingham chapter are below. Their dates can be closely guessed by the early British Railways symbol on the locomotive’s tender in the top left photo, which followed the plain ‘British Railways’ text that was used on the tender of the locomotives in the two photos on the right-hand page below.

The Moiré pattern evident in the images, especially the one at the top right, is a result of this book being a reprint of a previous issue with the original images being copied.

Moving north to the Grand Junction lines, Derek Cross captured the images below, each clearly showing a characteristic of his photos in capturing the complete train, rather than just the locomotives and a few coaches. The lower left photo again shows a similar Moiré effect to the ones above.

Derek Cross was as much at home in the remoteness of Wales as he was capturing trains thundering towards the summit of Grayrigg and Shap in Cumbria.

His photographic skills shine through on the left-hand page below, where in the upper photo the train is nicely balanced by Knucklass viaduct, and in the lower photo where the train brings to life what would otherwise be a plain image of the viaduct.

Countless photos of trains in the stunning beauty of the Lake District and taken by Derek Cross have been published in many magazines and books.

The examples on the pages below illustrate Derek’s skill in pressing the camera shutter at the right moment.

When thinking of railway photographers of the post-war years, one name that is bound to spring to mind is Derek Cross.

The photographs in this book show his artistry in capturing the beauty of both the landscape and locomotives, and bring back memories of what working steam was really like.

A six-page introduction to each chapter sets the scene for the subsequent pages with well-written details of the routes to be covered.

However, the standard of reproduction is far below the standard that Derek’s superb images deserve. The book is a reprint of a previously published book, and in many images the evidence of previous half-tone printing can be clearly seen.

With its large selection of excellent photographs and informative text, the book should be of interest to railway enthusiasts everywhere, but it is badly let down by poor reproduction that does a great disservice to the photographer, and can only be awarded a rating of 2/5.

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.