This isn’t about one book in particular, but several.

Over the years, foresighted writers have sought out old railwaymen – those who were employed before the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, and put their testimonies in an extremely readable form. Spoken through the eyes of the men themselves, you find yourself with them in their sparse little messrooms, the kettle constantly on the boil, or on a chilly morning before dawn lighting a steam engine, or hear the clock ticking steadily above the head of a signalman about to pull a lever.

To me, these are invaluable when it comes to research because they show the bleakness of a 1950s morning, or staff dicing with death as they took their trains through the night during WW2, and, most of all, the camaraderie and banter of a huge railway “family”.