Wartime on the Railways

While the first interest by the military in railways in Britain was intended primarily for internal security, the Boer War saw massive movement of men and their horses over the London & South Western Railway and through its port at Southampton. So important were the railways that in the First World War the state took control of the railways, and then repeated this exercise under somewhat more controversial arrangements in the Second World War. Wartime on the Railways is an account of the part played by Britain's railways during the Second World War, dealing not simply with operational matters or the impact of enemy action, but also looking at the part played by railway workshops, the wartime experience of the railways' ships, with the narrative augmented by personal accounts from railwaymen, and women as the war years saw many jobs traditionally handled by men taken over by them.