Great Australian railway stories. Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh. 2008.

Where explorers and settlers went in Australia, the railways followed. Small towns were linked like beads on a string by the railway: it was the way these communities stayed alive. The railways had their own mystery and their own language, and of course their own stories and yarns.

But just before all the old stories - and the humour - vanish in a cloud of steam, Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh, whose mother was a banger’s daughter, has brought together another enthralling collection of first-held accounts, of tales from the tracks and the railway sidings, from the engines and the guard boxes, the pubs and the carriages.