Showing results for "Britain" in Engineering

India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. There were vast riches to be exploited and vast numbers of people to be subjugated. How better to achieve these aims than by building a rail network that facilitated the export of raw material and made it easier for troops to travel around the country to tackle uprisings? India joined the railway age late: the first line was not completed until 1853, but, by 1929, 41,000 miles of track served the country.

During the summer of 1940, Hitler's Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin's Russia, and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion. Britain stood alone. Operation Sealion examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, and the Germans' record in Norway and, later, Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain's defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air, and naval forces.

In a small market town in the northeast of England in 1825, something momentous happened: ticket-bearing human beings started moving along wrought-iron tracks on a contraption with engine-powered wheels. The contraption was called a 'train'. What happened in Darlington, along a 26-mile line to Stockton, would kickstart the worldwide railway revolution.

The Age of Railways was an era of extraordinary change which utterly transformed every aspect of British life – from trade and transportation to health and recreation. Full Steam Ahead reveals how the world we live in today is entirely shaped by the rail network, charting the glorious...

What if we were less reliant on our cars? What if there were safe cycling paths to take us places instead? What if those paths led to the next town, the next village and the countryside beyond? This was the dream of a group of Bristolian idealists in the 1970s when they founded Britain’s National Cycle Network, which now runs to nearly 13,000 miles across the country. Journalist Laura Laker sets off on an odyssey around the UK to see where the NCN began, and where it is now.

What is it that fascinates so many people about Ronnie Biggs and makes him a household name sixty years on from the crime that made his name? Is it the man or the myth that makes Ron a latter-day Robin Hood, and the odd man out who is best remembered from a gang of sixteen who held up a mail train in August 1963? This book covers Ron's entire life including the Great Train Robbery, his conviction and subsequent escape from HMP Wandsworth. Ron tells how he managed to outrun and outthink the posse of law enforcement officers and the media that chased him around the world.

In the seven decades since the darkest moments of the Second World War it seems every tenebrous corner of the conflict has been laid bare, prodded and examined from every perspective of military and social history. But there is a story that has hitherto been largely overlooked. It is a tale of quiet heroism, a story of ordinary people who fought, with enormous self-sacrifice, not with tanks and guns, but with elbow grease and determination. It is the story of the British railways...

The opening of the pioneering Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of the railway network's vital role in changing the face of Britain. Fire & Steam celebrates the vision of the ambitious Victorian pioneers who developed this revolutionary transport system and the navvies who cut through the land to enable a country-wide railway to emerge.

From the author of national bestsellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter comes "a rousing tale of little-known heroes" (Booklist). The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and...

A definitive new edition of a classic memoir, published in association with the RAF Museum. Guy Gibson was the leader of the famous Dambusters raid and Enemy Coast Ahead is a vivid, honest account, widely regarded as one of the best books on World War II. It is also an insider's account that sets down in clear, honest detail the challenges that the RAF faced in the war against Germany's Luftwaffe.

This introduction to the years of the Napoleonic Wars (1793 to 1815) tells the story of one of the keys to that great conflict, the ship of the line - the deadly battleships that played such a vital role in the battles. The author describes the ships' construction and armaments, the daily life of the men who served, and the problems faced by commanders of the time in battles that include the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar.

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Built for Speed by John McGuinness, read by Joe McGann. ‘Then I was there myself, just another face in the crowd, watching the bikes fly by. The smells, the noise and the speed were all there for me to experience. It was...