British Railway Enthusiasm

The first book to study railway enthusiasts in Britain. The postwar train spotting craze swept most boys (and some girls, despite railways being coded as a male business) into a passion for railways. These people invigorated different sectors in railway enthusiasm’s life world - from railway modelling to Britain’s huge preserved railway industry. This is the first academic book to study railway enthusiasts in Britain. Far from a trivial topic, the postwar train spotting craze swept most boys and some girls into a passion for railways, and for many, ignited a lifetime’s interest. British railway enthusiasm traces this postwar cohort, and those which followed, as they invigorated different sectors in the world of railway enthusiasm – train spotting, railway modelling, collecting railway relics – and then, in response to the demise of main line steam traction, Britain’s now-huge preserved railway industry. Today this industry finds itself riven by tensions between preserving a loved past which ever fewer people can remember and earning money from tourist visitors. The widespread and enduring significance of railway enthusiasm will ensure that this ground-breaking text becomes a key work in transport studies, and will appeal to enthusiasts as much as to students and scholars of transport and cultural history.