"Mixed Gauges" has surpassed even the high hopes and expectations I had of it. It is quite superb.
Mr. G.T. Essex
You cannot look through this book only once and then put it away - Browse again and again and enjoy something different every time!
Mr. George M Hoekstra - Review in SWISS EXPRESS
Modern scanning and processing technology has done very well with the reproduction of old colour originals. ......... In short, this is a wonderful account of travel in the age of steam encapsulating a past world of railways which few enthusiasts were able to experience. We must thank John Snell for sharing his probably unparalleled experiences, and Camden for presenting the result so stylishly and successfully.
Review - 'Continental Modeller' February 2008
I received the copy of 'Mixed Gauges', which is absolutely superb in every respect. The cover photo is a knockout - better than Monet. And I am so fed up with seeing digital, telephoto, 'glint' shots, that to see these lovely conventional slides reproduced so well is a delight. The layout of the book is nice, too (speaking as a former graphic designer).
Mr. C.L. France
The 400 plus pictures, mostly by the author, are almost all in colour and convey in often dramatic form the power and diversity of steam world-wide in its declining years.....The Main lines get plenty of attention, but the author is also skilled at seeking out lesser byways of foreign railways. ....this is quite a special book, and for anyone who wishes to find out (or be reminded) what the steam era looked like in its final years before diesels and electrics took over, this is a splendid volume.
Mr. Brian Knowlman - Review in 'National Railway Museum Review'
John Snell's book is brilliant, not only in content but in print & bind quality, well done!
Mr. P.E. (a printer by trade) York
The landscape format of this book superbly brings out the best in (John Snell's) colour studies, some evocative, others moody, many simple record shots, but nonetheless invaluable as they are never-to-be-repeated...... Not only is this a landmark book covering the steam autobiography of one of the movement's leading lights, but it is a beautiful presentation volume that you will want to dip into again and again.....
Review - 'Heritage Railway' February/March 2008
It (comments about Bruckner and railways) is taken from a glorious new book 'Mixed Gauges', which devotes much of its 256 pages and 434 photographs to the narrow gauge but sets the subject firmly in the context of railways as a whole. Absolute delight!
Mr. David Joy - review in 'Narrow Gauge World & ng modelling' March/April 2008
This book is an entertaining and informative read......, richly illustrated with a lot of very good photographs, some of which are truly spectacular. I recommend you get a copy, you will enjoy it
Mr. David Proctor, Editor, review in 'Australian Model Engineering' March/April 2008
The young John Snell was with the late Tom Rolt and David Curwen when they opened the doors of Pendre Shed at Towyn in April 1951, starting the worldwide preservation movement, and he retired in 1999 after 28 years as General Manager of the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway. In the intervening period, whilst professionally he has sometimes not been involved with railways or preservation, he has always been actively involved in both, on many fronts, including writing or contributing to numerous books on railways. In fact, John's writing is well known and his only novel, published in 1958, must be the only family saga set against the background of a Welsh narrow gauge railway.
Given he was born in Fiji in 1933, spent the war years in New Zealand, and returned to Britain for further education thereafter, inevitably John has travelled widely, always with camera to hand. What is surprising is that very few examples of his photography have ever been published before and, as is very evident here, he is fully the equal of any of the well known photographers from the 1950s on - Derek Cross, W. V. Anderson, Eric Treacy, Marc Dahlstom, Felix Fenino et al., although he was perhaps a more enthusiastic, and earlier, user of colour than most.
If you were into railways, home and 'abroad', from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s in particular, this is incredibly nostalgic and will bring the memories flooding back. If you are too young, just see what you missed! Not that this book stops in the 70s - it continues much later in South America and South Africa in particular.
The text is a delight, being informative and interesting, with an underlying dry humour, but it is the photographs that will take your breath away. Whilst the locomotive or train is always the centrepiece, these are not sterile photographs of lumps of machinery, but are full of life with lots of incidental details, which is why we chose a large landscape format - 245 mm x 297 mm, with a good number of the photographs printed absolutely full page. And there are a lot of photographs - around 400 in full colour and 60 or so in black & white. The earliest photographs here where taken in 1945 in Fiji, then in 1950 on the S & DJR.
The main chapters cover: The U.K in the 1950s, including a superb series of pictures on the Furzebrook Railway, Fiji and the sugar cane railways, Wales - mainly, but by no means exclusively, the Talyllyn, New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavia, France, Spain and Portugal, Java and Thailand, Germany, the U.S.A., Switzerland, Austria and Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru, South Africa, and the Last of British Steam. The author usually travelled solo, or with a handful of friends - his Andean adventures were the only time he was part of an organised group, other than a few trips to the French narrow gauge, when he was the organiser or leader.
There are 256 pages, so this is a big book in every way, and we are sure that it is one you will enjoy for many years to come. Buy a copy and give yourself a huge treat! Hardbound. Camden
