My latest completed proofreading project was yet another title on a Welsh railway subject, this time the focus being on South and Central Wales and the local coal industry in its pomp. Entitled South Wales Railways Gallery, this was a picture book, the illustrations being drawn from many sources and showing not only how large and complex the railway network in the area concerned was, but how the volume of traffic carried compared with the rest of Britain. It seemed that traffic figures were higher than anywhere else. Just one ‘stat’, from 1976, stated that one in every six domestic railway wagons were being used in the area in question! The whole ‘gallery’, in summing up, was an interesting reminder of when coal was king.
