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The Adventures of 'A Fighting Railway' The Belfast Central Railway Company 18641885
by Robert Phipps, published by Ormiston Publishing, softback. 288 pages.£25, ISBN 978-1-3999-4637-7
This is a fascinating book which takes, behind its pugnacious title, a detailed look at a very unusual – and widely neglected – aspect of railway history. But why a ‘fighting railway’?
In the author’s words his is a story ‘full of personalities, heroes and possible villains, a little bit of skulduggery, and above all, endless battles with other railway companies, the town council and the harbour commissioners, fought out in the press, Parliament, the courts and elsewhere. The epithet of ‘a fighting railway’ was never so well deserved’.
The author argues that the Victorian railway companies were a staunchly…
