TURN the first page of Gallery of Steam and you're on familiar territory - the Brooksbottom Viaduct on the East Lancashire Railway, with a double-headed steam train storming across it.
This glossy 172-page photo book from Steam Railway magazine is a credit to those anorak-clad photographers who plant their camera tripods in the most unlikely places to reach the holy grail of that perfect steam train shot. Apart from our "local" tourist line, this brilliant gallery reveals steam locomotives hard at work on main lines, preserved lines, narrow gauge lines and industrial lines throughout the UK and selected foreign spots.
There are none of the technical details and dusty anecdotes that rail buffs love, but the concisely captioned photographs are so good you can almost smell the smoke and hot oil, and the print quality is excellent.
Gallery of Steam (Haynes, £16.99).
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