Now available in paperback, this is the first academic book to study railway enthusiasts in Britain. Far from a trivial topic, the post-war train spotting craze swept most boys and some girls into a passion for railways, and for many, ignited a lifetime’s interest.
British railway enthusiasm traces this post-war cohort, and those which followed, as they invigorated different sectors in the world of railway enthusiasm – train spotting, railway modelling, collecting railway relics – and then, in response to the demise of main line steam traction, Britain’s now-huge preserved railway industry. Today this industry finds itself riven by tensions between preserving a loved past which ever fewer people can remember and earning money from tourist visitors.
The widespread and enduring significance of railway enthusiasm will ensure that this groundbreaking text remains a key work in transport studies, and will appeal to enthusiasts as much as to students and scholars of transport and cultural history.
Tabella dei contenuti
1. Introduction: The railway enthusiast’s life-world
2. The railway book (and magazine) mania
3. Associated life
4. Train spotter: the last pariah
5. Preserved lines: playing trains or running a business?
6. Blood on the tracks
7. Modelling and engineering
8. The rise and fall of the toy train empire
9. Standards, schism and skill: exclusive brethren
10. A dying fall?
Bibliography
Index
Circa l’autore
Ian Carter is Professor of Sociology at University of Auckland
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