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The 'Peaks': Classes 44/45/46 Hardcover – 27 Sept. 2023

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

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Product description

About the Author

Kingston born Simon is a lifelong railway enthusiast. Indeed, one of his earliest railway memories is of being taken to Cricklewood Open Day in 1969 at the age of four. Simon started his working life at the Victoria & Albert Museum but since 1995 he has held a variety of roles within the rail industry and is currently a Quality Manager. Over the years Simon has written for a number of different railway magazine titles, usually on "modern traction" related subjects. He can often be found at the National Archives at Kew researching his next work. An enthusiastic preservationist he has been closely involved in the Class 47 Preservation Project since its inception. When not involved in railway related matters, Simon enjoys a wide variety of interests with his wife Jane, be it watching Bristol City FC or London Broncos Rugby League. He has been a member of Middlesex CCC for over twenty years. An occasional distance runner he says his finest sporting achievement was completing the 2010 Windsor Half Marathon in less than 2 hours 30 minutes.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crecy Publishing (27 Sept. 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1800352689
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1800352681
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 28.8 x 1.9 x 22.2 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2024
    Good book, great source of information.
  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 October 2023
    Book looks like a very well researched historical tome. Very impressed with the contents.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 December 2023
    Having all of Simon's books on diesels and electrics, I was looking forward to this book. Being born and brought up in Derby, they were ever-present on the railway scene during my childhood.

    Now this book does a lot of things well; the rationale around ordering, design, and construction of the "Peaks" is covered in depth. As is the refurbishment programme at Brush for the 46s. The chapter on names was also interesting; particularly on some of the names originally suggested for the locos. However, no mention is made that E W Arkle (Chief Traffic Officer) was an enthusiastic northern fell walker, who might've had some say as to the eventual choice of "Peak" names.

    Unfortunately, there are several typos and misplaced captions - not the fault of the author but indicative of poor proof-reading nowadays. However, some locations are wrongly identified; not sure how Derby can be mistaken for York (p.92), or Teignmouth for Dawlish (p.120).

    My main criticism, though, is that the text is mostly descriptive, with little in the way of critical analysis of the "Peaks" as a whole.

    But is the book worth buying? Definitely; 100%.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 November 2023
    A very good review of the technical details of the class , but almost totally lacking in details of what the class did on a day to day basis (lots about unusual workings which is largely unimportant but not what they normally did!).
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2023
    An expensive book, slightly damaged due to poor packaging. Envelope was split open, and delivery man just put it through the letter box,so sustaining damage to to corners of cover.
    Amazon must do better.
  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 December 2023
    Some nice pictures and lots of detail but I have lost count of the number of obvious errors where numbers (especially money) are out by a factor of 10 or even 100. Makes it hard to read. A lot of technical stuff gleaned from minutes in the records but lacks on usage and performance. Still worth a look.
  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 October 2023
    I bought my edition of this rather good (but short of excellent book) from a local vendor and not from Amazon.

    This is a serious and worthy effort at looking at the development and career of British Rail's first stab at a really powerful Type 4 locomotive under the BR's 1955 Modernisation Plan.

    Now I love the English Electric Class 40 but we have to be honest and say that audio entertainment aside, at 2000 hp they were somewhat underpowered, and were found wanting because they had to move their own weight as well as the express trains they were designed to pull (this was from a period when it was found that the rather young and doomed Riddles 9F's could do 90mph plus on express trains on the Southern Region!!).

    So, it was decided to uprate yet another heavy 1Co - Co1 locomotive to over 2000 hp to 2300-2500 hp using a Swiss designed Sulzer engine. And so we ended up with the Classes 44/45 and 46s. I saw a lot of 44s sedately on freight in my spotting career but being a Nottingham lad, had the joy of lots of haulage behind Class 45/0 and 45/1 with the odd 46 thrown in for good measure (I remember a particularly fine run behind 46044 from Grantham to Doncaster in 1983).

    The 46's with their Brush electrical equipment the book reveals might have been more economical to run but they apparently took ages to get up to speed when compared to a 45 which could accelerate up to 45 mph before going into weak field and would treat its 8 coach consist on Midland Mainline with utter contempt.

    My view of the Class 45 was that it was a brute of a locomotive (pistons as big as bar stools) that could haul anything. They did not did do finesse like the Deltics. It was all crash bang and wallop - the railway equivalent of a Saturn 5 rocket - just brute strength to pull you along the iron road in defiance of gravity from one place to the next. They were loud (the generator hum alone at speed had to be heard to be believed) and heavy (too heavy) and hard on the track but when one of these babies was doing up to a ton on the MML or ECML NOTHING was going to stop you getting there. Nothing. Well, except the signalman of course.

    I have no issues with buying the book and recommend it to you but I do have the following criticisms:

    Mr Lilley's book is nicely illustrated (there is a bit of a mix up on p. 96 with two picture captions) and the history of the design phase of the Peaks is a really interesting section, but there is a lack of summing up or comment about the consequences of some of the design decisions.

    There is also no concluding chapter, which I find odd - summing up the performance and the career of these locomotives and assessing their success or not. Early withdrawals were brought about by economic recession - not necessarily poor design. In fact its hard to pin down what Mr Lilley's thoughts are at all. Stephen R Batty in Ian Allan's 'Last Year's of the Peaks' (1985) has more to say (p. 9 ' Enthusiasts should remember that the Peaks were the first single-engined diesel electric locomotive with sufficient power to available to allow passenger journey times to be substantially reduced').

    Another glaring omission I find in too many diesel traction books (but not books on steam) is that they don't engage enough with those who drove them or worked on them. This omission is also brought to the fore when Lilley's books starts to resemble the very good in its own right 'Derby Sulzer website' and starts recounting Peak workings that include too much info on other locos whilst describing some of the operations. It drags on a bit. What the book misses for me is the human side, reminiscences and insights that make our hobby so fascinating. For example..............

    I remember spending about an hour one quiet sunny Sunday talking to the shed foreman at Nottingham MPD in the early 80's and hearing him talking enthusiastically about his Class 45 charges. He said that they were like steam loco's in that you could send them out with small defects and they would still get the job done. The big problem he said was when they went off region, they would disappear for long spells (they got nicked) and they usually got a Brush 4 (Class 47) back which did not go down well. The only time they came back was when they were broken or had been abused (usually both). The foreman said that a Peak had the heft to haul ANYTHING and were much more simple to work on than the Brush 4. He thought that the Peak was a much better mixed traffic design than any Brush 4.

    It's stuff like this that could have been included in my view. The book is a technical nerds dream, but there is a lack of that something, the shared experiences of being around big impressive diesel traction. The book - for all its technical virtuosity and detail is a bit 'cold' in the man/machine interface department. Some of us buy these books because they also bring back fond memories, we're a bit sentimental!

    However, having said that it's still a worthy edition to your collection and still highly recommended.
    7 people found this helpful
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