Trains, Trains and More Trains

What to expect at this event

WE HAVE HAD TO CANCEL THIS EVENT, SINCE TICKET SALES DIDN’T WARRANT OUR AUTHOR MAKING A FOUR HOUR JOURNEY EACH WAY.

He is happy to rearrange in the future if there is enough interest.

A talk revealing the remarkable true story of the Victorian rail magnates behind The Grand Crimean Central Railway – a feat of engineering that helped win the Crimean War.

ANTHONY DAWSON

Anthony has a lifetime’s interest in railways, working at Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry, and as a Railway Volunteer on the replica ‘Planet’ locomotive. He has written numerous books on Victorian railways and his latest takes a sideways look at the Crimean War. Best remembered for the Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale, it was the first ‘modern’ war, not only for its vast scale but also the technologies involved: iron-clad battleships, rifled artillery, the electric telegraph and steam. The Grand Crimean Central Railway was the brainchild of two Victorian railway magnates who volunteered to build a steam railway linking the allied camps at Sevastopol to their supply base at Balaclava. It was a railway that won a war and saved thousands of lives.