British Rail Designed: 1948-1997

£35.00

British Rail Designed 1948-97 is about the design successes, and failures, of Britain's most extensive state-sponsored industry. It is a story of people and ideas, movement and design, speed and colour; it is a comprehensive celebration of the crafting, operation and marketing of a national railway system, by which four main-line companies with steam-powered empires were transformed into a modern transport system
The principle subjects of this book are the railway system as an entity; the places where trains stop (station architecture and interiors, lettering design); the vehicles themselves (locomotives, passenger and freight vehicles); the people who operate the system (uniformed staff); the means of encouraging and facilitating travel (printed publicity, graphics, tickets, holiday packages)
This is also a study of how politics and the civil service, geography and urbanisation were manifested in the design processes and products