Penzance to Paddington, Stop Block to Stop Block

In the last hundred and eighty or so years, there have been thousands of books written about railways. They include everything from locomotives to rolling stock, from signals to stations and depots You will find each subject has been more than well covered, many, many, many times, by a great many experts on railways. However, it is far more difficult to find books about the most precious resource the railways have, its people, and what it was like working on the railways in times past.

This story is a lived social railway history from the 1950s through to 2013. It is about a career, or rather a vocation, which lasted thirty-nine years and four months, working on the railways. A career that started in the District Inspectors Office at Penzance in British Railways days and ended in the Station Managers Office at Paddington in First Great Western days.

This is why it is a book entitled Stop Block to Stop Block. According to the milepost on Platform 1 at Penzance Station it is a distance of 326.75 miles (via Bristol) from the Penzance stop blocks at the start of the GWR main line to the Paddington stop blocks at the other end of the GWR main line.