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The Duchesses

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The Duchesses completes a trilogy of railway books from Aurum, the first two volumes of which have been significant successes. Mallard was the story of the world's fastest steam locomotive. Flying Scotsman was the story of the world's most famous steam locomotive.

Now The Duchesses tells the story of the locomotives any steam railway fan will tell you were the finest and most powerful steam engines in Britain. The title is plural because, unlike the subjects of the first two books, there is more than one 'Duchess' still in existence: Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of Sutherland. The class began life in the Thirties as the "Princess Coronation" class: they were the flagships of the West Coast main line for the LMS, designed by the great William Stanier, to compete with the famous streamlined "Pacific" class locomotives on the East Coast of which Mallard is the most celebrated survivor.

The Coronation locomotives were streamlined too, originally (see the front cover illustration), and indeed the Duchess of Hamilton, which resides in the National Railway Museum, is being rebuilt this year to its original form. Andy Roden's book tells the story of these fabulously powerful locomotives' time in British Railways service, and then the extraordinary saga of the preservation of two of them by no less than Billy Butlin at his holiday camps, before their eventual rescue and return to steam on the main line. Andy Roden is the editor of International Rail Journal and also the author of Flying Scotsman.

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