THE DUMPY POCKET BOOK OF LOCOMOTIVES – BRITISH AND EUROPEAN edited by Henry Sampson and compiled by J.K. Yarwood. Small pocket sized (13cm x 10cm), hard back with dust cover, 190 pages and hundreds of black and white photos. Published by Sampson Low, London in 1961. A Vintage Hardback Book from the 1960s, this book is 63 years old.

This vintage locomotive book covering steam, diesel and electric units is illustrated throughout. It is in very good condition and unmarked and the pages are off white but solid and free from tears. All of the pages appear to be crease free even on the top and bottom corners. There is a small pencilled price (7/3) on the top right corner of the title page. The dust cover is a bit tatty around the edges and has a couple of small pieces of tape holding small tears together.

The contents of the book are as follows: Introduction, Frontispiece, British Railways, Trans Europ Express, Belgian National Railways, French National Railways, German Federal Railways, Italian State Railways, Netherlands Railways, Spanish National Railways, Electrification, Electrification in Europe, Types of Diesel Engine, Signalling in Britain, Belgium, France and Germany.

This is an amazing little book especially when one considers that it is over 60 years old and has lived in the same smoke-free home for all of its life. A must have for any collector of vintage railway books.