The Glorious Years

The Glorious Years is a collection of the best photographs to have graced the pages of Steam Railway magazine in recent years.

Steam locomotives are intensely photogenic subjects, and this superb collection of over 150 images, taken before the demise of steam on British Railways in 1986, captures the power, spirit and spectacle of a bygone era, when the railways breathed life into the urban industrials heartlands and the rural landscape alike. Extensive captions provide fascinating detail and insight into each scene, providing a running commentary throughout the book.

The contributing photographers all have one thing in common – a passion for their subject – which is immediately evident from their characterful portrayals of scenes that represent the heyday of the railways in Britain.

This superbly produced book provides a fitting tribute to both the steam locomotives featured and to the photographers, many of whom went to extraordinary lengths, traveling the length and breadth of the country in their efforts to document “The Glorious Years’ of steam.

This stunning book is a collection of the best photographs ever published in the renowned railway magazine Steam Railway, which is part of the EMAP stable. First published in 1979, Steam Railway is the world's best-selling railway periodical and is widely regarded as the finest for photography from the steam era, both conventional and more avant-garde.