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"I first wrote a book on Surrey’s railways in 1987.
It
was called Surrey Railways Remembered and it followed a book
Sussex Railways Remembered which had proved an unexpected
success.
Writing
for me began after early retirement at the age of 56.
I had found a railway embankment in the Lindfield, Sussex,
area but could not find any reference on old railway maps.
Some
research at the local library revealed this was a line part
built in 1865 and then abandoned because of competing railway
companies.
I
wrote 500 words, took a few pictures and sent it to the Mid
Sussex Times in Haywards Heath.
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| The
remains of Necropolis South station, in Brookwood cemetery |
Many
months later
it was published and
I was sent a cheque for £5.
My
writing career had begun!
My latest book Lost Railways of Surrey is my 20th. It
is an update of my 1987 book but with considerable revision
and many new pictures.
I enjoyed digging into the history of the early ‘atmospheric
trains’ of the mid-19th century.
These
were trains that literally ‘ran on air’ sucked along a vacuum
created in a tube by the trackside and pulled by a piston.
For
a time trials were successful but there were problems. One
was that rats were sucked into the tube!
Electric trains with overhead wires came in the early 1920s.
They known as ‘The Overhead Electrics’ but the idea was replaced
in 1928 by the present third-rail system.
The
Beeching Report of the 1960s proved disastrous for many lines.
Yet
it is many of these lines that have proved the basis for my
Lost Railways books.
Tracing early trackbeds, old stations – many now private dwellings,
visiting preserved lines have all proved a fascination and
incentive to cover them fully in my series.
My next book will be the Lost Railways of Kent with many more
railway gems to be discovered".
Leslie Oppitz
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