Rob Shorland-Ball’s researches for this book, and several visits, convinced him that he was putting together a jigsaw of facts. No previously published account of the area have brought together these stories of iron & steel making, limestone quarrying, coal mining, terra cotta, lead mining, and the railway systems they all needed to move their products to market. There were narrow and standard gauge railways -80 miles of tracks in the Shotton Steel Works; industrial sites like Brymbo Iron and Steel Works; and since 2003 the Airbus factory which makes 100ft long wings for Airbus 380s that are too long to be moved by rail! A jigsaw indeed and this books puts together the pieces. AUTHOR: Rob Shorland-Ball -former Geography and English teacher, deputy head of the National Railway Museum, railways and industrial heritage consultant -uses his extensive experience to write this book about railways and industries in the north eastern Welsh / English borderlands. Rob has written several railway books for P&S and is always interested in making connections -for instance between the geography of an area, the shape of railway networks, settlements in that area. And people stories too. Why was a railway built? Why did many English entrepreneurs come to NE Wales to make fortunes?
200 colour and b/w illustrations, map and track diagrams