Last updated at 14:56, Friday, 16 November 2012

IF you ask people why Millom emerged as a Victorian new town from the marshes of the Duddon estuary, most will say iron ore.

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It was certainly important, but without the arrival of the railway the area is likely to have remained a rural backwater.

The complex story of Victorian railway investment and speculation and its impact on West Cumberland is told in a new book by Alan Atkinson.

His volume for the Cumbrian Railways Association series called Millom: A Cumberland Iron Town and its Railways is the result of many years’ of research.

Mr Atkinson is now based in Worcestershire but spent much of his childhood in Millom, taking a typical boy’s interest in the main line and industrial locomotives he saw every day.

The result of his research is a lavishly illustrated book with more than 100 and more than 40 maps and drawings, many in full colour.

It is likely to appeal to railway enthusiasts, modellers and to the many enthusiasts for local history - as there is much in the book beyond the role of railways.

Millom: A Cumberland Iron Town and its Railways is available from booksellers or direct from Cumbrian Railway Association book sales at 50

Tattershall, Toothill, Swindon, SN5 8BX for £14.00 plus £1.50 for postage and packing

First published at 14:54, Friday, 16 November 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk