lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on antipodean trains and tracks

Click on the small images at right to see a larger picture

207517 Armstrong, John Locomotives in the Tropics - Volume 1 Queensland Railways, 1864-1910 Australian Railway Historical Society - Queensland Division, Brisbane Qld., 1985. Quarto; paperback; 112pp., with diagrams and many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers rubbed. Very good. Click here to order $30

213753 [The Australian Railway Historical Society] A Century of Locomotives New South Wales Railways, 1855-1955 The Australian Railway Historical Society/Tye Department of Railways New South Wales, Sydney NSW, 1955. Royal octavo; hardcover, full cloth with gilt spine and upper board titles and decorations; 128pp., with a monochrome frontispiece and many illustrations likewise. Moderate wear; cocked; spine extremities softened; boards rubbed with some marks; upper joint cracked (but strong); text block edge top edge dusted; offset to the endpapers; previous owner's name in ink to the flyleaf. Dustwrapper rubbed and edgeworn with many old tape stains; large chips to the spine and main panels with associated tearing; now backed by archival-quality white paper and professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Good. Click here to order $25

93170 Belbin, Phil, & David Burke Changing Trains A Century of Travel on the Sydney-Melbourne Railway. Methuen Australia Pty. Ltd., Sydney NSW, 1982. Quarto; hardcover, with illustrated endpapers; 144pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; some very minor scraping to the board edges; text block edges lightly toned with some spotting. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film). Very good. In nineteenth century Australia, Sydney and Melbourne were the competing capitals of what were different countries, the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. They were as far apart as Paris and Berlin. In 1883 railway lines joining the two Australian cities met at Albury. The celebration was lavish. it was billed as the biggest intercolonial gathering in the continent's history. From now on federation was inevitable. This book is the story of the hundred years of the Sydney-Melbourne railway connection. It is about the trains - the Express, the Limited, the Spirit of Progress, the Southern Aurora and the locomotives who pulled them. Click here to order $40

209644 Bentley, James (illus. Phil Belbin) Black Smoke Blue Mountains The Great Zig Zag Railway Robert Brown & Assoc., Bathurst NSW, 1988. Quarto; hardcover, upper board titling and illustrated endpapers; 176pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; small residue spots to front board with lightly rubbed extremities and corners; faint spotting to text block edges. Lightly rubbed dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Click here to order $35

82686 Burke, David Great Steam Trains of Australia: signed copy Rigby, Adelaide, 1978. Inscribed quarto hardcover, 160pp., mainly monochrome illustrations. Board edges and corners rubbed and scraped; dustwrapper moderately worn along edges and corners with tears on head of spine and upper rear edge, some scuffing. Very good in good dustwrapper (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive archival film and white paper backing). The author traces the development of the locomotives that hauled the expresses, from the underpowered puffing billies of the 1880s with their open cabs and tall driving wheels, through the advent of the heavy engines of the 1900s. He tells of the speeds these engines clocked, the big trains they hauled, and the well-known towns they raced through. He describes the confusion at the break-of-gauge terminals, the hassles at the ticket offices, and the crowding at the refreshment rooms. He portrays the sweating engine crews, the porters, and the stationmasters in their braided caps and brass buttons. Click here to order $45

213726 Burke, David Kings of the Iron Horse A.E. Smith & F.J. Shea Methuen Australia Pty. Ltd., North Ryde NSW, 1985. Octavo; hardcover, full cloth with decorative endpapers; 248pp., with 32pp. of monochrome plates and other illustrations likewise. Mild wear; text block top edge lightly dusted; some minor rust stains to the front endpapers. Dustwrapper a little rubbed and edgeworn; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Laid in: promotional material from the publisher and a clipped newspaper review. Across a space of eighty memorable years, some 3300 steam locomotives were built in Australia for this country's railways. Few other products of our heavy industry could compare at the time with these steam engines for their sheer 'Australianess'. Their design and construction by Australian engineers and artisans represents a fascinating phase of the nation's industrial and social history. Alf Smith and Fred Shea were two of the men who made these iron horses. Theirs was a lifelong friendship that began with a teacher-pupil relationship in the grimy, deafening workshops where the metal to build the locomotives was beaten out. Both rose to the supreme office of C.M.E - Chief Mechanical Engineer. Alf began with the Victorian Railways of the turbulent 1880s, advancing from apprentice to draftsman to self-taught engineer. Fred Shea belonged to a later generation that would ultimately scrap the beloved steam machine and usher in the diesel-electric age. In the years between lay a great locomotive adventure, one in which some of Australia's largest, grandest, most powerful steam engines took to the rails. Both men left the mark of their achievement on Australia's railway systems, on workshop practice, and in their contribution to transport on the very fabric of national growth. The classic engines for which they were responsible in the stirring age of steam truly earned them the title, 'Kings of the Iron Horse'. Click here to order $22

213689 Burke, David Man of Steam E.E. Lucy - A Gentleman Engineer in the Great Days of the Iron Horse Iron Horse Press, Mosman, 1986. Hardcover, octavo; black boards with pale blue spine titling, decorated endpapers; 280pp., monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; mild toning and spotting to text block and page edges. Very good to near fine in like dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Ernest Edward Lucy was the last senior engineer to come from a famous British railway company to take charge of the mechanical empire of Australia's largest transport system, the New South Wales Government Railways - NSWGR. Lucy hailed from the GWR (God's Wonderful Railway' to its devotees), an organisation filled with tradition that dated back to the earliest days of steam. The desperate illness of a young wife caused Lucy to give up a promising career in the Great Western and migrate with his small family to a country far down-under of which he knew very little when he assumed the post of Assistant Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1906. His first wife died tragically only a few weeks before he attained the pinnacle of Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1911; from henceforth he was in command of vast resources of manpower, enginepower, of carriages, wagons, workshops and far flung depots. Though essentially a quiet man - 'Lux' to close family, 'Dear Lucy' to friends - he found himself enmeshed in a series of dramatic events that were to surround the management and direction of the NSWGR for the next 21 years until the very close of his career. Lucy endured the grim 1917 strike, the loss of many of his young men to World War I, and the humiliation of having his own assistant promoted to his superior. Engine failures, wrecks, a royal commission, ministerial interference and the Depression, his name raised in Parliament as the butt of violent criticism; through it all he survived. His office spanned an extraordinary period of State political history, hitherto little explored from the aspect of its impact on the men who ran the trains. For Lucy it all reached a climax with the return of the Lang Government in 1930 when, in his 72nd year, the bell finally tolled. Such was the life and stormy times of the locomotive engineer responsible for the famous NN, the C36 and huge D57 Mountain class, for rail motors and the introduction of Sydney's electric trains. They called him the ' fine old English gentleman' - E.E. Lucy of Steam. Click here to order $30

57572 Burke, David With Iron Rails A Bicentennial History of the Railways in New South Wales NSW University, 1988. Square quarto hardcover; black boards with upper board gilt titles and rules, decorated green endpapers; 248pp., colour & monochrome illustrations. Dustwrapper lower rear edge creased with a few light scrapes (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film). Very good. Click here to order $35

91553 Dargan, James Safe Signals: A History of NSW Railway Signalling James Dargan, 1989. Quarto hardcover; blue boards with gilt front board and spine titling; 225pp., monochrome illustrations. Owner's name and details on pastedown. Minor wear; a few spots on endpapers and upper text block edges; binding very slightly cocked. Otherwise near fine in like dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Click here to order $60

63011 Dunn, Ian & Merchant, Robert (eds.) Pansy the Camden Tram An Illustrated History of the Campbelltown to Camden Branch Railway New South Wales Rail Transport Museum, Sydney, 1982. Octavo stapled paperback, 72pp., colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; slightly worn cover edges, one or two tiny scrapes. Otherwise very good. Click here to order $25

84532 Dunn, Ian, Bill NcNiven (sic.) & Laurier Williams Flyer A Tribute to Steam Locomotive Operation on the Sydney-Newcastle Expresses Rail Transport Museum, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 1970. Quarto; paperback, with illustrated wrappers; 76pp., with many full-colour and black & white photgraphic illustrations. Minor wear; well-rubbed edges, scraping to corners and spine extremities. Very good. Click here to order $20

62991 Estell, Don, David Howarth & Richard Mosman (eds.) Illawarra - 100 Years Illawarra Group NSW Transport Museum, Wollongong, 1988. Quarto paperback, 108pp., colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; very slightly rolled; mild rubbing and edgewear to covers. Very good. Click here to order $40

81781 Fitch, Ron Railroading at its Wildest Kangaroo Press Pty. Ltd., Kenthurst NSW, 1993. Quarto; hardcover; 176pp. with many maps and monochrome photographic illustrations. Minor wear; some very mild edgewear and rubbing to the boards; light spotting to the text block edge; previous owner's ink stamp to the flyleaf. Dustwrapper lightly rubbed. Very good to near fine. One railway historian described Ron Fitch's 46 years in Australian railways as 'railroading at its wildest'. In particular, he was amazed at the remoteness and distances involved; at a construction engineer living in a tent, cooking his meals over an open fire and subsisting for an entire summer on tinned meat, potatoes and onions, bread and jam; at the chief civil engineer of a major railway carrying his swag from rest house to rest house when on track inspection; at his being obliged to travel further than from London to Rome to the site of a derailment or washaway and the same distance back again once the damage had been repaired; or at the existence of a railway system with over 3000 kilometres of main line that didn't cross one permanent stream yet was subject to periodic flooding. In this book the author looks back over those incident-filled years. Click here to order $30

207514 Fluck, R.E., R. Sampson & K.J. Bird Steam Locomotives and Railcars of the South Australian Railways Mile End Railway Museum, Roseworthy SA, 1986. Quarto; paperback; 176pp., with maps, diagrams and many monochrome and full colour illustrations. Mild wear; covers rubbed. Very good. Laid in: a previous owner's hand-written notes on cowcatchers. Click here to order $75

213713 Fookes, R.S. (ed.) The Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin Volume XVI (New Series) - No.327, January 1965 to No.338, December 1965 & Volume XVII (New Series) - No.339, January 1966 to No.349, December 1966 The Australian Railway Historical Society, Sydney NSW, 1965 & 1966. Two volumes: octavo; hardcover, full cloth; 544pp. [254pp. + 290pp.], with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; light rubbing of the boards with a few minor marks; some insect damage to the 1966 volume; spine heels softened; previous owner's ink inscription to the flyleaf of the 1965 volume. No dustwrappers. Very good. Click here to order $70

213697 Harvey, J.Y. The Never-Never Line: The Story of the North Australian Railway Hyland House, South Yarra, 1987. Quarto hardcover; blue boards with gilt spine titling, illustrated endpapers; 368pp., b&w illustrations, maps, tables and schematics. Minor wear only. Near fine in like dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. The Never-Never Line is the North Australia Railway, an isolated 3ft 6in gauge line which ran southward from Darwin to Birdum at the Top End of the Northern Territory. It began operations in 1889 as the 146 mile long Palmerston and Pine Creek Railway, a component of the South Australian Railways system. It became Commonwealth property in 1911 and under its new owners was extended 55 miles to the Katherine River in 1917 and in 1929 to Birdum 316 miles from Darwin. The railway ceased operations in 1975, an indirect casualty of Cyclone Tracy. The Never-Never Line tells the story of this railway. Its original conception as part of the great north-south transcontinental line, its construction (mainly by Chinese coolies), its early days under South Australian control and its transfer to the Commonwealth. The book recounts the problems encountered during the construction of the two extensions and in the operation of a remote railway on a miniscule budget thousands of miles away from its headquarters. The book also vividly portrays the difficulties encountered during WWII as the line struggled to handle record tonnages blessed with commandeered second-hand equipment and staff 'borrowed' from other railways, and at the same time cope with enemy bombs and an over-zealous military. During the post-war period the railway barely justified its existence until the emergence of substantial iron ore traffic in the 1960s. Once again the Never-Never line rose to the occasion though not without difficulty and embarrassment. The book tells the story of the North Australia railway as well as the various attempts, spanning more than a century, to complete the great north-south transcontinental link, bringing this saga right up to the present time. Click here to order $150

213772 Irwin, Bruce S. The Apricot Mail A History of the Rogan's Hill Railway 1923-1932 The Author, Ingleburn NSW, 2005. Quarto; stapled paperback; 96pp., with monochrome illustrations, maps, tables. Minor wear only; tiny chips on head and tail of spine. Near fine. Click here to order $25

213761 Knowles, J.W. Lonely Rails in the Gulf Country The author, Brisbane, 1983. Octavo paperback; 76pp., b&w illustrations. Minor wear; mild scattered spotting to cover versos; rubbed covers and slight wear to edges. Very good. Click here to order $20

204208 McCarthy, K. The Corrimal Colliery Railway Light Railways Number 60, April 1978 The Light Railway Research Society of Australia, Upper Ferntree Gully Qld., 1978. Octavo; stapled booklet; 44pp., with maps and many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers lightly rubbed; text block edges lightly spotted. Very good. Click here to order $15

204206 McCarthy, K. Gazetteer of Industrial Steam Locomotives Illawarra District N.S.W. Australian Railway Historical Society (NSW Division), St. James NSW, 1983. Octavo; paperback; unpaginated (pp.), with maps and many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers rubbed and spine lightly sunned; top corner of the back cover torn away; mild spotting to the text block edges and preliminaries. Very good. Click here to order $20

207513 McDonald, Keith Steel and Rails in Newcastle Light Railway Research Society of Australia, Surrey Hills Melbourne Vic., 1981. Quarto; paperback; 118pp., with maps, diagrams and many monochrome illustrations. Moderate wear; covers well rubbed and scuffed. Else very good. Click here to order $25

70861 Oakes, John Sydney's Forgotten Goods Railways Botany-Darling Harbour - Rozelle- Enfield- Abattoirs - Chullora Australian Railway Historical Society, 2001. Royal octavo paperback, 112pp., colour & monochrome illustrations. Minor wear only; near fine. Click here to order $17

213770 Paull, Malcolm Glenreagh to Dorrigo Branch Railway Australian Railway Historical Society, NSW Division, 1988. Quarto paperback; 72pp., b&w illustrations, maps and charts. Mild toning to upper text block edge. Near fine otherwise. Click here to order $18

207512 Pollard, Neville The Story of the Sydenham to Botany Railway Offal, Oil and Overseas Tade Australian Railway Historical Society - New South Wales Division, St. James NSW, 1988. Quarto; paperback; 56pp., with maps and many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; covers rubbed and spotted. Very good. Click here to order $20

90369 Preston, R.G. 125 Years of the Sydney to Parramatta Railway NSW Rail Transport Museum, Burwood NSW, nd. (c.1980) Octavo; paperback; 152pp., with endpaper maps and many monochrome maps, diagrams and illustrations. Minor wear; slightly rolled; faint spotting to upper text block edge; wear to edges with a few scrapes. Very good. Click here to order $18

207515 Preston, R.G. The Great Northern Railway Newcastle to Maitland, 1857-1982 The New South Wales Rail Transport Museum, Burwood NSW, 1982. Quarto; paperback; 112pp., with many monochrome and full colour illustrations. Mild wear; covers rubbed and edgeworn, scraping along spine panel edges. Errata docket taped to front cover verso. Very good. Click here to order $45

90699 Preston, Ron An Era in Steam On the Railways of New South Wales Orion Fine Arts, Strathfield, NSW, Australia, 2001. Landscape quarto; paperback; 112pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear only; near fine. Click here to order $30

90698 Preston, Ron On Southern Lines The Railways of New South Wales - In Steam Orion Fine Arts, Strathfield, NSW, Australia, 2001. Landscape quarto; paperback; 80pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear only; near fine. Click here to order $25

63154 Stark, R. John The Return of Steam Locomotive C17, N0. 45 The Degener Timms Publications, Gympie Qld., 2000. Quarto hardcover, 120pp., with colour and monochrome plates. Near fine copy in like dustwrapper. For three years locomotive No. 45 sat on the Gympie Railway Workshops No.9 Outer Loop Line, then she was stripped of all brass and working parts and placed in a park for sixteen years. After her rescue and removal to the Gympie & District Historical Society Inc. it was considered 'nigh to impossible' to restore. The story shows how eight men over a period of five years and two days accomplished the impossible. Click here to order $35

212584 Thompson, John B. 38 The C38 Class Pacific Locomotives of the New South Wales Government Railways Eveleigh Press, Matraville, NSW, 2000. Reprint: quarto; hardcover, full green leather with silver-gilt spine-titling and upper board decoration and decorative endpapers; 276pp. with a full-colour frontispiece and many full-colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; small tear on upper edge of dustwrapper, now repaired. Very good to near fine; wrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. "Unemployment Clyde Engineering Company, away (sic.) back in 1938, and the Hunter Valley apprentices. forty-six years later, in 1984, had one problem in common - unemployment. In Clyde Engineering's case, Contract No. 12/38 for five 38 class locomotives was let to the company to 'relieve unemployment'. For expediency's sake, the NSW State Government simply gave the contract to Clyde Engineering without accurate costing and without calling for tenders. This action caused a considerable consternation for seven years until 2 March 1945, when 3805 was finally commissioned for service on NSWGR. Almost fifty years down the track, unemployed apprentices from the Hunter Valley Training Company restored the gallant 38 class leader, 3801, to its former glory, to steam again over NSW tracks. 3801 was the first steam locomotive to cross the Australian continent from Sydney to Perth and return. 3801 is the 4-6-2, Pacific type, which set a steam speed record (unbroken as yet) between Sydney and Newcastle, a distance of 104.5 miles in 2 hours and 1 minute. 3801 is the bullet-nosed streamliner, known Australia-wide, described as the finest example of locomotive engineering in this country." - from the Introduction. Click here to order $100

213705 Various Byways of Steam On the Railways of New South Wales in the 1960s Eveleigh Press, Matraville, 1990. Quarto; paperback; 120pp., diagrams and many black & white illustrations. Minor wear only; near fine. Click here to order $20

213704 Various Byways of Steam 2 Mainly On the Railways of New South Wales in the 1960s Eveleigh Press, Matraville, 1991. Quarto; paperback; 108pp., diagrams and many black & white illustrations. Minor edgewear to covers. Otherwise very good. Click here to order $20

90376 Ward, Andrew (Rennie Ellis, illus.) Railway Stations of Australia Macmillan Company of Australia Pty. Ltd., Artarmon NSW, 1982. Quarto; hardcover, with decorated endpapers; 86pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; light softening to the spine extremities; random spotting to the preliminaries; previous owner's ink inscription to the verso of the flyleaf. Mild edgewear and spotting to the dustwrapper (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film). Very good. The fantastic and practical, the extravagant and economical, the classical and neo-Gothic, the grandiose and the purely functional are among the railway stations recorded here. In its day the refreshment stops were eagerly anticipated not only for want of sustenance offered but for the opportunity to punctuate the journey. There would be a rush to the refreshment counter, or a drink at the bar; one could walk up front to the locomotive, sweating steam from every joint and glinting with the recent application of oil on the running gear; feel the heat and listen to the beat of the compressor or catch a glimpse of the activity on the footplate. The romance of rail travel is with us yet though largely eclipsed by other forms of transport. Today the steam engine has been pensioned off, the branch line motors, the mixed trains and the roadside freights have mostly run their last trips in revenue service and the remaining passenger services corner a small share of the travel market. The picturesque backwaters of the system have been pruned and many stations reduced to the status of unattended halts. Weeds proliferate amongst the ruins where locomotives were watered and made ready for the road. The doors of countless goods-sheds are locked fast and pigeons roost where we once waited, not so long ago, for 'the pass'. The last surviving element of the transport scene are the stations in their erstwhile magnificence and comfort; their fading wallpapers and elegant fire surrounds, the waiting room appointments and the carved timber refreshment room bars. This book captures them all - from the resort stations, commuter stations, the big city terminals and the unimportant flag stops. Magnificent photography from Rennie Ellis. Click here to order $35

63157 Wheatley, Robert & Bruce (Foreword by Clive Robertson) Railway Portraits - signed copy Writelight Pty. Ltd., Blackheath NSW, 2006. Quarto; hardcover; gray boards with white upper board and spine titles and photographic endpapers in b&w; 112pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; inscribed with a dedication by Rob Wheatley in ink to the verso of the flyleaf. Dustwrapper mildly sunned on front upper and spine panel edges now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $35

207071 Wilson, Craig Built by Baldwin The Story of E.M. Baldwin & Sons, Castle Hill, New South Wales Light Railway Research Society of Australia, Melbourne Vic., 2002. Quarto; hardcover, with gilt upper board and spine titling and illustrated endpapers; 159pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. The family engineering business of E.M.Baldwin & Sons would have seemed a most unlikely potential competitor to Australia's largest manufacturing companies - Clyde Engineering Co. Pty and Commonwealth Engineering (Queensland) - in 1962. Still reflecting its farming origins with large scale egg production, its small general engineering business specialised in custom designed stainless steel food preparation equipment. But in 1962 the firm was approached to build a small canefield locomotive and a year later commenced its pioneering work with flame-proofed rail vehicles. With frequent visits to potential and established customers to find what they needed, and a work environment that promoted flexibility, over time E.M. Baldwin & Sons became the most innovative and successful builder of diesel industrial railway equipment in Australia, best known for their introduction to the Australian sugar industry of the bogie canefield locomotive. The book tells the story of these engines as well as describing the Company's underground, shunting and fairground locomotives, brake wagons and diverse range of engineering work from stainless steel vessels to broad-acre agricultural tractors. Click here to order $75

207571 Wright, Harry, K.T. Groves & M. Morahan (Phil Belbin & Craig Mackey, illus.) The 60 Class NSW Rail Transport Museum, Burwood NSW, 1994. Quarto; hardcover; 226pp., with many monochrome illustrations and a folding schematic. Minor wear; some light scraping to the boards. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Click here to order $150