Transport: general interest

For generations of Londoners, a trip to the seaside aboard a pleasure steamer such as the Royal Eagle, Golden Eagle or Royal Daffodil was the highlight of the year and these 'Poor Man's Liners' were part of childhood and family life for huge numbers of people.

The first trams to be operated in West Bromwich belonged to the South Staffordshire Tramways Company, which began operating double-deck steam trams from Handsworth to Wednesbury in 1883, eventually extending the route to Dudley.

On 8 August 1974, the world's last seagoing paddle steamer was sold by her owners for the princely sum of a pound.

In his time Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the world's greatest engineer.

London's Docklands have a rich and varied history.

The West Coast Main Line - going all the way from London to Glasgow - remains one of the most important railway routes in this country.

The LBSCR was the main route connecting London with Brighton and the pleasures of the South Coast resorts.

At its peak in the 1920s Ireland had some 3,500 route miles of track, today it has less than half that amount.

Infinitely flexible, they have appeared in short, medium and long wheelbase variants, with a host of body styles and conversions for everything from sixwheeled fire engines to motor homes.

The London & Birmingham Railway was the first major line in Britain and it was the greatest achievement of its engineer, Robert Stephenson, the man who, together with his father George, had set the age of the railway in motion with their pioneering achievements.

The history of East Shropshire has had a global impact, with Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale acknowledged as the 'Cradle of the Industrial Revolution'.

The Sprinter revolution of the 1980s led to the mass withdrawal of British Rail's vast fleet of first generation Diesel Multiple Units.

Popular history will tell the tale of how the steam locomotive came to dominate Victorian Britain but while the steam railway died out in the 1960s, the electric railway was already a success story and one that would not only endure but dominate rail travel to the present day and beyond.

Thanks to a quirk of fate, and the survival of so many locomotives in the Barry scrapyard, the GWR is well represented in the steam preservation scene today.

The Mersey has changed over the past thirty years.

The Manchester Ship Canal was a huge engineering achievement.

Based in Renfrewshire, Clydeside Scottish was a member of the Scottish Bus Group and was created from the northern part of Western SMT's area.

The Cornwall Railway was authorised on 3 August 1846 with the aim of constructing a broad gauge rail link between Plymouth, Truro and Falmouth.

The Isle of Man has a rich transport heritage and once boasted the largest narrow gauge network in Britain with eight railways and tramways.

The drama of the Cumbrian countryside combined with some of the most magnificent steam locomotives to be found anywhere in Britain.

Arguably one of the most dramatic railway lines in northern England, the Settle - Carlisle runs through remote, scenic regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines.

Hugh Llewelyn has travelled throughout Britain to gather this collection of his photographs of the diesel shunters.

Geoff Swaine has combined his passions for photography and railways in this new collection of images which covers some of Britain's most celebrated heritage lines: The West Somerset Railway, the Bluebell Railway in Sussex, the North York Moors Railway, Didcot Railway Centre, the Mid-Hants Railway (Watercress Line), the Llangollen Railway in Wales, the Great Central Railway at Loughborough, the Severn Valley Railway, the North Norfolk Railway, the Kent & East Sussex Railway, the Gloucester & Warwickshire Railway, the Midland Railway Centre, the Battlefield Line, the Bodmin & Wenford Railway, the Spa Valley Railway, and the Dartmouth Steam Railway.

As authorised in 1835, the Great Western Railway extended from London to Bristol, but from the very earliest days, ambitious promoters were planning a whole series of extensions to destinations such as Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Cornwall and South Wales.

The drama of the Cumbrian countryside combined with some of the most powerful diesel and electric locomotives to be found anywhere in Britain.

Created in 1973 with the amalgamation of the Caledonian Steam Packet Co.

The Caledonian Steam Packet Co.

Lavington & Devizes Motor Services (L&DMS) was not a typical West Country rural independent bus operator.

Bradshaw's Guide of 1863 was the staple book on what's what and where's where for the mid-Victorians and it gives the modern reader a unique insight into the world of the nineteenth-century railway travellers.

With a foreword by the Duke of Edinburgh, who travelled to the Antarctic on the maiden voyage of the RRS John Biscoe, this is the story of the ship's final voyage in the Antarctic to the British Antarctic Survey bases.

During The First World War, the railways of Great Britain were effectively nationalised and put under Government control.

The Georgian town of Whitehaven, located on the West coast of Cumbria, was once the third most important port in Britain but today is only used by a handful of fishing vessels.

Weston-super-Mare and the Aeroplane 1910-2010 is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of the association between Weston-super-Mare and the aeroplane over the last one hundred years.

It was inevitable that certain areas of Wales would be chosen as locations for airfields in times of conflict and war.

This is the story of Walsall's trolleybus system, from its opening in 1931 through to its eventual closure in October 1970.

As mankind gave up the nomadic hunter gatherer life and became farmers, they were largely self sufficient.

Bradshaw's Guide of 1863 was the staple book to what's what and where's where for the mid-Victorians and it gives the modern reader a unique insight into the world of the nineteenth-century travellers.

On 17 September 1921, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton left London aboard his ship Quest, bound for the Antarctic on what would prove to be his final voyage.

David MacBrayne's involvement in West Highland shipping services soon grew to encompass all of the major routes to the Isles.

The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is perhaps best known for its role in the 1970s film The Railway Children, based on Edith Nesbit's much-loved book.

In 1871, a bright new star appeared on the Liverpool shipping scene.

Founded in 1838 in Liverpool, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was the first to operate steamships in the Pacific and primarily traded from the UK to the Pacific coasts of South America.

The old Bridgewater Trustees mineral railways were to become the Central Railways of the huge Manchester Collieries concern, which was formed in March 1929.

The Dundee & District Tramways Company began operating a service using a horse tram on 30 August 1877.

The London Brighton & South Coast Railway - also known as the 'Brighton Line' - was an important pre-grouping railway covering a triangular territory with London at its apex and the Sussex and Surrey coast at its base.

The advent of the jet airliner all but killed the liner on the Atlantic route but the ships to Australia survived into the 1970s, not just on the liner trade but also carrying emigrants from the UK and Europe to Australia.

Cork Harbour, at the mouth of the River Lee, is one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

The sleek lines of the HST 125 High Speed Train represent a massive stride in British locomotive design in the latter part of the twentieth century.

This fourth volume of illustrated Bradshaw's Guides takes the traveller from the London Bridge and Victoria stations via the former South Eastern Railway to the 'watering places' of the coast of Kent.

The Great Northern Railway was built to provide a direct link between London and Yorkshire.