Railways of Southern Africa

(London: Adam & Charles Black, 1971) 0713611065. Number 1 in the series "Railways of the World". 8vo; original green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; price-clipped laminated pictorial dustwrapper; tinted top edge; pp. 243, incl. index; 105 photographs and 8 colour plates. Near-fine condition. "In studying the railways of any country, or group of countries, one cannot go very far without dipping into history. There will be peculiarities of equipment-design or track layout that cannot be explained by an examination of the situation that exists today. In Southern Africa however the history of railways is to a remarkable extent the history of the sub-continent itself. Only in Cape Province does the history of the country extend back to more than a century before the coming of railways, and history in all the countries of Southern Africa is dramatic and compelling to the last degree." .