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...lastly, I've also just finished the attached book - The Railways (Nation, Network & People), by Simon Bradley. It's a social history type of thing, rather than a general history encyclopaedia: so, rather than pages of numbers and locomotive spec sheets, it's more like a normie-friendly look at the typical passenger experience of a railway journey, beginning with a trip in 1862 and progressing through to the current day (ish). It also goes fairly deep into freight operations, sleeper trains, and station design as well, which is surprisingly rare for 'railway literature'; there's also an entire chapter dedicated to trainspotting. Pick it up if you can, it's incredibly thick so will last you a while.