Description

R.A.H. Weight was an early recruit to the Ian Allan stable compiling the first ABC of LNER Locomotives. He was an Officer of the Stephenson Locomotive Society and President of the Invicta Railway Circle and a regular contributor to railway and mechanical publications.

One can only admire the amount of work that went into the collection of the information in this book. Mr. Weight will have had access to the locomotive lists and notebooks left to the Stephenson Locomotive Society library by E. L. Ahrons and others, but in the days before PCs, laptops and photocopies, the sheer labour of transcription must have been considerable. One should also bear in mind that in 1947 paper rationing was still in force, so to undertake publication himself would involve finding a printer with sufficient old stock to use for the book, to say nothing of the financial risk of having to sell the work himself.

Looking at the line drawings of the locomotives from the first designs by Sturrock, to the early Gresleys, one can see a strong family resemblance through out.