Cecil John Allen (1886–1973)

I loved these steam trains on the Southern Region but i didn't see them at their peak in 1951. I was amused to find my copy once belonged to B.T.Motley who received this as a prize for Divinity at Windsor County Boys' School in 1951. Did the headmaster think that trainspotttng was near to godliness? Blighter Motley, though, was he the one who removed the coloured fold-up frontispiece? The black and white photographs of the Merchant Navy Pacific locomotives and the lighter West Country locomotives
that followed are superb and Cecil Allen sums up O.V.S.Bulleid's work well: 'Mr O.V.S.Bulleid;s pioneering work has made a notable contribution to the sum of knowledge in the field of locomotive engineering', (page 7). He also brought a lot of joy to those who watched his locomotives and were hauled along by them.… (més)