Wiltshire Wisdom – The Genius of Swindon in the Steam Age

Wiltshire Wisdom – the genius of Swindon in the steam age’ is a new book from The Transport Treasury and published under the ‘Flagship’ imprint. It has been years in the making and is written by Bob Meanley, a mechanical engineer by profession who for many years was in charge at Tyseley responsible for the restoration, maintenance and operation of the former GWR engines now based there. As such he is uniquely qualified to write on the subject and does so in a way that is without equal. Be assured this is no ordinary history, it is a history of how the locomotive works at Swindon developed, were expanded and enlarged to become one of the largest covered workshops in Europe and so able to produce the finest engines to emerge from a British railway workshop. It also describes the input of the staff within the Drawing Office and who were responsible for turning the ideas of Churchward, Collett and Hawksworth into practical machines, for the first time also we have detail and images of many of these men.