David St john Thomas is the author of many books, including a bestselling series chronicling the four big railway companies. He is the founder of the publishing house David & Charles, which he ran for 30 years. His other titles for Exisle are Journey Through Britain and Remote Britain.
Railway Season
Celebrate the days when trains were trains, individual expresses had their own character, serving their passengers in style in the restaurant car, and connecting services ran over picturesque branch lines that were a very part of the countryside they served. Railway Season captures all our railway yesterdays with panache.
This is indeed a railway book like no other, a portfolio of word portraits by an enthusiast who knows his subject intimately and is never at a loss for a telling example.
Though this is not specifically a book about the countryside, inevitably it looms large since even intercity trains run through it, as demonstrated in the chapter ‘A country journey like no other’, which also emphasises the author’s West Country background. But whatever your interest in railways and wherever your favourite part of the countryside, there is much here for you. The chapter on railways for pleasure perhaps sums it all up.
SPECIFICATIONS: Cased and Jacket | 195 x 135 mm | 192 Pages |
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Going by Train
The Complete New Zealand Railways Story
Railways played a pivotal part in the development of New Zealand’s economy, towns and cities, and helped shape a distinctive culture. This is a comprehensive account of our railways story, from the earliest days of the colony, through rail’s growth and golden days, slow decline and recent resurgence. Fully illustrated, and written in a very readable style, rail fans and general readers alike will enjoy its wide-ranging topics, generous illustrations, anecdotes and personal accounts.
SPECIFICATIONS: 9781775593553 |Cover & Jacket | 260 x 183 mm / 10.25 x 7.25 inches | 312 Pages | Colour
Journey Through Britain: Landscape, People, Books
In his ‘thinking traveller’s tour’, David St John Thomas journeys by rail and ‘Little Car’ around Britain, exploring the fascinating and diverse character of Britain today. He reflects on Britain, Britishness, the British people and how they have changed, not always for the worse, over the fifty-odd years he has known them as an author and a publisher.
Taking in places as various as beaches, mountain moors, industrial and early Christian sites, great hotels, art galleries, canals and cycleways, meeting people- famous ones, friends, gardeners, railwaymen, craftsmen, bus conductors- who enrich his journey with their stories and observations, and drawing on literature and history, he discovers the true heartbeat of the country. The result is a narrative that surprises, amuses and engages, as well as offering a treasure trove of facts, anecdotes and new perspectives on this extraordinary nation.
SPECIFICATIONS: Hardback/Paperback | 240 x 160mm / 198 x 126 mm | 700 Pages |
Remote Britain
Landscape, people and books
Remote Britain relishes the ever-changing great landscapes of this fascinating island and the people who grow out of them. And the constant surprises. Who realises how sharp are the contrasts to be found within the Isles of Scilly or the Isle of Wight, how remote it is possible to feel in Essex, or how extraordinary is ‘Yorkshire’s teardrop’, Spurn Point, way out in the Humber estuary?
As in his acclaimed Journey Through Britain to which this is a worthy successor, Mr Thomas finds remains of railways and even active steam trains in the most unlikely of places, stays in hotels to fall in love with or to hate, and is never short of people to express their own views, as he does colourfully himself in chapters such as In the Footsteps of the Queen Mother.
Here is a book to dip into, savour and refer to many times.
SPECIFICATIONS: Hardback | 234 x 153 mm | 536 Pages + 16 Pages of Colour Photographs |