Life in a Railway Factory
Transportation History Industrial History Engineering & Technology Biography & Autobiography Railway History Working-Class Memoir British Social History
Life in a Railway Factory is the forgotten classic that takes you onto the shop-floor of the Great Western Railway’s Swindon Works at the height of the steam age. First published in 1915 and re-issued here in this well-preserved 1992 illustrated paperback, Alfred Williams chronicles the clamour, sweat and craftsmanship of Britain’s largest industrial complex through the eyes of the men who actually built the locomotives. 320 pages of first-hand stories—told in the author’s lyrical “ Hammerman Poet” voice—capture everything from the hiss of rivet-forges to the Saturday-night brass-band dances, making the book both a technical record and a moving human portrait of industrial Britain.
Collectors prize this edition because it is the only affordable reprint that keeps Williams’s original text intact while adding period photographs, line-drawings and workshop plans that were omitted from earlier facsimiles. Printed on high-grade paper (826 g, 250 mm tall), the book is sturdy enough for reference yet compact for reading on commutes or in the workshop. Condition notes highlight only light exterior scuffing and classic page-edge foxing; inside, the pages are clean, unmarked and ideal for research, modelling or simply immersive reading.
For rail-fans, social historians, model engineers and anyone tracing family who worked “inside”, Life in a Railway Factory is the go-to source: a primary document written by a man who swung a hammer before he picked up a pen. The History Press edition keeps the spirit of the original alive, offering modern readers an authentic voice from the golden age of steam without the collector-level price tag of a first edition.
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