Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to the blog of Railway Historian Anthony Dawson. Here he hopes to share some of my historical findings of the pioneering years of the Railways in Britain, c1830-1855.

Anthony was born in Wakefield in 1980; his parents owned shares in an '8F' - when house-hunting it is rumoured his father wanted a property with a drive sufficiently large to put it on. His mum, obviously, refused. He is a graduate of the University of Bradford (B.Sc Hons, Archaeology) and Leeds (M.Res, History). He had worked for Tameside Museum Services and for a period taught Local History and Archaeology at Salford City College. He puts his enthusiasm for early railways into good pracitce as a volunteer on the Steam Railway at the Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester as a Trainee Fireman working on the replica 'Planet' 2-2-0 locomotive, based at the world's first Passenger Railway Station.