Description

This book features colour and b&w photographs taken in 1965-69 during family holidays to Spain and Portugal. The emphasis is on broad- and narrow-gauge steam, but diesel and electric-power locomotives are also featured, as are trams and trolleybuses. The photos are accompanied by extensive commentaries.

The author’s holidays as a child with his parents in the 1950s and 1960s were as much, if not more, about railways than about ‘normal’ holiday pursuits, and with the decline of British steam by the mid-1960s thoughts turned to further afield. From 1965 until 1969 family summer holidays became two weeks in either Spain or Portugal: 1965 – Sitges, about 25 miles to the south of Barcelona, Spain; 1966 – Benidorm, about 30 miles to the north of Alicante, Spain; 1967 & 1968 – Ofir, about 30 miles to the north of Oporto, Northern Portugal; 1969 – Tarragona, about 60 miles to the south of Barcelona, Spain. ‘1960s Iberian Railway Holiday’ explores Iberian broad- and narrow-gauge railways with an emphasis on steam, although diesel and electric power locomotives are also featured, as are trams and trolleybuses. All the photographs (both colour and monochrome) were taken by the author and his late father, and virtually all of them have never previously been published. Each image is accompanied with an extensive and informative commentary. This is a captivating time capsule of Iberian railways from over fifty years ago created out of the private collection of an internationally renowned authority on steam locomotives and their history.