Harrogate Terriers
Harrogate Terriers

Author: John Sheehan

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1473868149

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Using original personal and military diaries, with hundreds of carefully selected newspaper extracts, letters and photographs, this book traces individual stories of tragedy and heroism, involving tradesmen, apprentices, lawyers, musicians, sportsmen, brothers, husbands and fathers from Harrogate and the West Riding. As such, it characterises the experience of the British Infantryman in the Great War.The Territorials of the 1/5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment were the unsung heroes of the Great War. These Saturday Night Soldiers from York and the northern West Riding of Yorkshire went out to face the might of the German Army in April 1915. Through the hot summer and dark winter that followed, they stopped bullets at the Battle of Aubers Ridge and choked on Phosgene gas at Ypres. Caught in the carnage of the notorious first day on the Somme, the West Yorkshire Territorials were held up by General Haig as convenient scapegoats for his tactical failure, only for the 1/5th Battalion to prove him wrong and redeem itself as an attacking force at the Battle of Thiepval Ridge, and then again at Passchendaele in 1917. In the last year of the war, the battalion helped fight a rear-guard action on the Menin Road, and was effectively wiped out at the Second Battle of Kemmel Ridge, only to be re-constituted in time to take part in the bloody advances at Cambrai and Valenciennes, which helped bring the conflict to an end.

Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On
Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On

Author: Julian Holland

Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.

Published: 2013-09-27

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1446358305

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Julian Holland's Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On is a unique memorial to all that was lost following the publication of the ‘Beeching Report’ on 27 March 1963. Uniquely, the author has tried to include every railway line that was closed as a result of the ‘Beeching Report’, and more. They are all shown on Map 9 in Part 2 of the ‘Report’ and have been annotated for clarity at the beginning of each regional chapter in the book. Needless to say it is not plain sailing: there are lines that were marked for closure on the maps but were closed before publication of the ‘Report’; there are lines that were not originally on Beeching’s original hit list but which were closed anyway; there are lines that were originally marked down for closure but which were fortunately reprieved. There are even one or two which seem to have not existed at all! The author has included them all.

The World's First Railway System
The World's First Railway System

Author: Mark Casson

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 0191570419

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The British railway network was a monument to Victorian private enterprise. Its masterpieces of civil engineering were emulated around the world. But its performance was controversial: praised for promoting a high density of lines, it was also criticised for wasteful duplication of routes. This is the first history of the British railway system written from a modern economic perspective. It uses conterfactual analysis to construct an alternaive network to represent the most efficient alternative rail network that could have been constructed given what was known at the time - the first time this has been done. It reveals how weaknesses in regulation and defects in government policy resulted in enormous inefficiency in the Victorian system that Britain lives with today. British railway companies developed into powerful regional monopolies, which then contested each other's territories. When denied access to existing lines in rival territories, they built duplicate lines instead. Plans for an integrated national system, sponsored by William Gladstone, were blocked by Members of Parliament because of a perceived conflict with the local interests they represented. Each town wanted more railways than its neighbours, and so too many lines were built. The costs of these surplus lines led ultimately to higher fares and freight charges, which impaired the performance of the economy. The book will be the definitive source of reference for those interested in the economic history of the British railway system. It makes use of a major new historical source, deposited railway plans, integrates transport and local history through its regional analysis of the railway system, and provides a comprehensive, classified bibliography.