NEW APRIL 2015. John Pendleton's two-volume work entitled 'Our Railways - their Origin, Development, Incident and Romance' was published by Cassell and Co. Ltd. in 1896.

Reproduced here are the complete contents of the chapter headed 'The Great Eastern - the Workman's Railway Friend'. He tried to be as up to date as possible in his writing, so although he provides a balanced survey he concentrates on topics that were the issues of the moment – in this case the building of the Lancashire Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, supported by the G.E.R. and destined to provide them with a far greater share of the coal traffic to London, and the question of workmen’s fares.

Included too are some notes by him on railway speeds, reporting returns the House of Commons had requested from the railway companies in 1892.  There is also an account of the rise in passenger numbers at London termini in 1891 compared to those of 1881, Liverpool Street coming at the top of the list. Six line drawings from elsewhere in the two volumes are added, among them four depicting ECR passenger carriages as they were in 1846-7.

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