During the great age of steam, most railways in Dorset were operated by the Southern Railway and the Great Western Railway. These Dorset railway companies and daily life on the branch lines during this era and beyond are recorded here amid a wealth of informatively captioned photographs collected by authors Ted Gosling and Mike Clement. Bygone railway stations are affectionately recalled, together with the open cattle trucks and luxurious Pullman coaches that served our great –grandfathers’ generation. This book is a tribute to the men who worked on the demanding coal-fired locomotives of this age for they were truly the unsung heroes of Dorset’s railways.