Tracing the Rails® Launches National Search for Britain’s Next Lost Railway Story

Show presenter Steven with loco 41312

Tracing the Rails Productions Ltd, the not-for-profit team behind the acclaimed documentary series Tracing the Rails®, is launching a national appeal to help decide which lost railway line should become the focus of a future series.

The documentary series began by following the former Steyning Line in West Sussex, uncovering the forgotten stations, hidden trackbeds, community memories and local stories connected to a railway that once shaped the landscape and the lives of those who lived along it.

Now, as the first series continues to grow its audience through YouTube, community screenings and television broadcast on Rewind TV, the team is inviting the public to nominate other lost, closed or abandoned railway lines from across Britain.

Director Chris Kirk told That's Books and More: “We know the Steyning Line is only one of many lost railway stories waiting to be told. 

"Across the country, there are vanished stations, forgotten bridges, old cuttings, former railway communities and memories that deserve to be preserved. 

"We want people to tell us which line they think should be next. It needs to be exciting, contain abandoned stations and maybe tunnels and viaducts, but be less well publicised. Something with a story waiting to be told, like we have with the Steyning Line in Sussex.”

The appeal is open to railway enthusiasts, local historians, former railway workers, community groups and anyone with photographs, memories, documents, artefacts or family stories linked to a lost railway.

Tracing the Rails has also recently gained wider recognition, reaching the semi-finals of the Hollywood Indie Film Festival in two categories: Best Serialised Web Documentary and Best Feature Documentary.

Tracing the Rails Productions Ltd is a not-for-profit company, with all support helping to cover the practical costs of filming, research, archive material, insurance, travel and editing through Patreon.

To nominate a lost railway line for a future series, or to support the project, visit tracingtherails.com

or email info@tracingtherails.com and of course, watch Season 1!

Murder at Deviation Junction

Jim Stringer always wanted to be an engine driver but a series of unfortunate events (described in the previous books in the series) robs him of this ambition and ruins his chances of working as an engine driver.

However, he is spotted as a good man with a keen eye and a sharp mind so he becomes a railway policeman, a detective in the force.

It is December in the year of 1909. There is heavy snow in Yorkshire that winter, so it is of no surprise when a train runs smack into a snowdrift and becomes stuck.

What does cause a surprise is when the gang of railworkers who are given the task of clearing the line of snow discover a body hidden at the side of the track.

It should be a simple case, but it all goes terribly, horribly wrong. And Jim's life is put in grave peril.

Why does the case involve a giant steel works?

Who is the murdered man? What connection is there to an exclusive railway dining club that mysteriously and abruptly ceased operating sometime prior to the discovery of the body?

Why does the case interest a reporter from a railway magazine, who seems to know more about the case than he should? And what, exactly, is the reporter so anxious to find?

The novel takes Jim Stringer away from his warm home and his loving wife and child and the familiar surroundings of of the police office at York station to an appointment with a grim and grizzly fate on the be-snowed Scottish Highlands.

But who can Jim Trust? The strange Scottish giant called Small David? The reporter, Bowman?

The novel sets a cracking pace and Andrew Martin paints excellent word pictures to set the scenes of story. So well that you'll swear you can smell the smoke and steam and feel the chill that gnaws at the bones.

The list price is £10.99, but I paid considerably less with Amazon.
ISBN 978-0-571-22965-9

The Blackpool High Flyer

Driving or firing the Blackpool High Flyer was a plum job. The train went cross country from Yorkshire right through Lancashire to the North West coast of England, and the town of Blackpool.

But this was to be no ordinary journey. Jim Stringer, the steam detective, had thought that with his return from London, all the dangers and problems of being a railway detective were long gone and all in the past. But fate had different ideas!

It is only the quick reactions of Clive, the driver, that stopped a terrible catastrophe. Someone had left a millstone on the railway line. And one of the 512 passengers on the Whit Sunday Excursion Train to Blackpool dies as a result of the crash. Or did she die as a result of the crash? How, exactly, did she die? And who would have had a motive to kill her?

Was there a connection with the works outing that was taking place on the train? And if there was, what was the connection?

Jim Stringer thought that it was too much of a coincidence for the millstone to be placed on the track and for just one passenger out of 512 people on board to have died.

But how can Jim Stringer, now a former railway policeman, back in his more normal role of being an engine fireman, find out what had actually transpired?

If the same person had caused the death of the woman, how could they also have been responsible for the placing of the millstone on the railway line? And for what reason would they have wanted the woman passenger dead and what possible motive could they have had for placing the millstone on the railway line?

And who is it that means to see that this will be the last case that Jim Stringer, steam detective, will ever investigate? Are they linked to the mysterious person who left the millstone on the railway line? Or the person who had murdered the woman, if they were not the same person? Or is there another reason that Jim Stringer's life is in danger?

This is a very satisfying mystery novel as it does contain several concurrent mysteries. And all is certainly not what it seems!

It is written by Andrew Martin and published by Faber and Faber, the paperback version costs £7.99.