The first in a series of three titles covering the stations of the Birmingham area past and present. The web site www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk has established a huge following receiving thousands of hits from all over the globe. Here is the first companion volume designed to be used in conjunction with the web or as a stand alone volume.
Based on his highly successful ‘Rail Around Birmingham’ internet website, Andrew Doherty’s new Silver Link series incorporates a wealth of information and many new pictures of the city’s railways in a handy, portable book format, allowing the reader to explore the extensive network, past and present, ‘on the ground’.
Covering every passenger station in the region, line by line, location by location, the book provides a unique record of the development, decline and rebirth of Birmingham’s railway network. While in recent years rail travel into and around the city has grown enormously, of the 73 stations built since the arrival of the Grand Junction Railway in 1837, only 38 are operational today, while the remains of the others are rapidly disappearing as Birmingham enters yet another phase of regeneration.
Rail around Birmingham provides a contemporary photographic survey of the sites of all past and present stations and locations, as well as many previously unpublished historical photographs and items of ephemera, together with maps and location details.
Andrew Doherty was born in Birmingham and, following university in Liverpool and Hull, he trained in web design technologies and created the ‘Rail Around Birmingham’ website (which features more than 8,000 images covering more than 250 locations, and is consulted by in excess of 2,000 visitors a week). He also now runs his own successful website and IT consultancy in the city, and is a founding member and committee member of the Birmingham Industrial History Society.
