I have lately been re-reading a book which I've noticed a fair number of RailUKForums posters mention as much loved by them: Eleven Minutes Late by Matthew Engel. I confess to being, in many respects, hard to please. My personal reaction to the book (which came my way initially, as a birthday present from relatives aware of my railway enthusiasm) is to regard it as OK, and basically a good read; but falling considerably short of being a masterwork.
While the book has proved to be greatly liked by railway enthusiasts; it would appear to me, to be aimed first-and-foremost at the many millions of Britons who are not "into" railways on a hobby-type scale, but harbour at least a small spark of liking for trains and railways. In his 300-odd pages, Engel provides for such a readership: a digestible, not overly "heavy" history -- social / political, not technical -- of Great Britain's railways in their many aspects, between their early-19th-century beginnings, and publication date 2009. He ponders in parallel, on the railways' noticeable entwinement over that not-quite-two-hundred years, with the national heart and psyche of the British people. All this interspersed with / bracketed by notes and commentary on rail journeys taken by him late in the 21st century's first decade: chiefly, by dint of an all-line railrover, from Penzance to Thurso and back (northbound by the logical and, mostly, expeditious route, including a Penzance -- Dundee through working; southbound via expansively-wandering travels).
In my estimation, Engel writes competently and definitely readably; though, for sure, not attaining the status of an author of genius. His "product" compares unfavourably to me, with the work of several authors on railway themes; which work I find magical, or verging thereon. He is, in his writing, consistently witty and humorous: about the many oddities of Britain's railways, and about the immense amount of folly, and less-than-ethical behaviour -- on the part of commercial and State-run enterprise, and of government and administration -- which has attended Britain's railway age for its almost-two-centuries to date (he mercilessly "roasts" such bungling, and conscious misconduct; but with, in the main, humour plied with a light hand, rather than bitter ranting). I personally relished his humour, at times; at others I found it whimsical in a way which prompted a degree of irritation.
A device in the book, for me pleasing and interestingly original, is his choosing to head most -- not every one -- of his ten chapters plus prologue, with past or present British railway station names -- with a significance (sometimes abstruse) connected with the chapter's chief content. The chapter starts with a vignette of its name-place as it is today. Examples -- Monkwearmouth: impressive station built to the orders of George Hudson; cue for recounting of the craziness of the Railway Mania period, including Hudson's shady career and ultimate coming a cropper -- seguing into matters of rail passenger services' of the time, catering to prestigious; and lowly; customers. Carnforth: via that station's associations with the beloved and very-widely-known film Brief Encounter, the chapter covers the railways' travails and achievements in the two World Wars; and the intervening time of the "Big Four" -- which the author sees as overall, a somewhat sad one for the railways. Melton Constable: as the one-time headquarters of the Midland & Great Northern Joint network -- whose 1959 demise as a functioning system marked Great Britain's first notably large-scale at-the-one-time passenger closure -- this name is taken to stand for the entire British Rail(ways) era, with much material concerning Beeching, and the widespread regret at mass closure of rural lines (often on the part of those who effectively never used them). The succeeding chapter -- sardonically recounting post-BR goings-on from 1997 to publication date -- is headed "Pentonville Road": which I take as an allusion to those happenings' similarity to a game of Monopoly -- the sort of foolery and skulduggery in which is fun when it's a game, but highly regrettable in real life.
Picking up on a couple of small random references in the book: the first, a matter on which I find myself definitely "on the same page as" the author -- the second, the only thing in the book which actually made me angry (admittedly, concerning a scene over which I am beyond the reach of sense or reason). "Item 1": Engel and I both entertain a notion which many would consider heretical -- that the Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh line offers not quite such a glorious journey as it is very widely claimed to do. My impression on travelling, has been that magnificent though the line is at both extremities; its middle reaches are monotonous and somewhat dreary. Engel, while clearly finding his Dingwall -- Kyle trip interesting and enjoyable, briefly indicates rather similar sentiments.
"Item 2": the book is fundamentally about railways in Great Britain. There are occasional short "compare and contrast" interludes looking at contemporary railway doings in western Europe, and the USA; Ireland's rail scene, though, is ignored save for a few ephemeral incidental mentions. The least insubstantial of such, is in a passage concerning the early days of BR: "The most ardent advocates of supporting branch lines wanted to replace steam with diesel railcars or railbuses. The world's shining example, somewhat improbably, was held to be County Donegal." And "that's all he wrote" there. Engel is clearly no admirer of the diesel-railmotor concept. A few pages later, pouring scorn on BR's never very numerous four-wheel railbuses of the 1950s / 60s, he opines: "The miracles [light railmotors] wrought could be overstated, anyway: the Donegal lines all closed in 1959. You do reach a point in trying to run a train like a bus when you might as well run a bus." I own up to being a thorough head-in-the-clouds sentimentalist: and one who -- although not having had the good fortune to see at first hand, the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee's undertaking in action -- have been besottedly in love with same since first reading about it at the age of approximately seven; and positively reverent about its decades of work with convenient and adaptable diesel railcars. In this matter, then: to hell with perceivedly rational views about what is and is not worthwhile; and with common sense -- vis-a-vis the "Donegal", I am consumed with ill-wishes toward "Matthew E. and the horse he rode in on".
