How I wrote Steaming to Victory – from the Western Daily Press

A SMASHING FEATURE about how I came to write Steaming to Victory from the Western Daily Press:

It may not have been the front line – but it was certainly the line behind the lines. With the country at war, the fibrous network of Britain’s railways became, irrefutably, the lifeline of the nation.

During the course of the war, a total of 395 staff were killed and 2,444 seriously injured – yet, despite their dedication, railway workers became the unsung heroes once peacetime prevailed.

When chronicling the war years, it is inevitably the monumental endeavours of the Armed Forces that fill the history books. Yet the men and women who ran our railway system through bombs and bullets were every bit as brave.

One man keen to celebrate their war effort is Michael Williams. Steaming to Victory, sub-titled How Britain’s Railways Won the War, puts an enlightening spotlight on our railway at war.

While he appreciates railways, Michael is an author and journalist, and does not claim to be an enthusiast. Consequently he has approached his subject with none of the anorak-wearing, rivet-counting baggage so often lampooned by those seeking a cheap laugh at the enthusiast’s expense.

In fact, he feels the key to this book has been in not being an expert.

First stop was copious research, followed by a long journey sifting through material.

Encapsulating everything, from evacuating children to hauling train loads of troops from Dunkirk, was, he says, “a complicated business”.

“I tried local sources, then adverts, railway magazines, the British Legion… I went to the National Railway Museum, Imperial War Museum, and the BBC Archive,” says Michael.

“You have to immerse yourself in the subject. Its only by marinating yourself in it that you can get the essence.”

He calls himself a general writer, not a historian or a railway enthusiast.

“Often, if you know very little about a subject but are full of enthusiasm, you can get a better story.”

Michael travelled the country to meet people face to face, as well as communicating through letters and phone calls.

“It was a detailed work but it was very gratifying. It took two years to put together but it was a labour of love,” he says.

“I wanted to get the memories of these people. That generation is at its end. I wanted to record their thoughts. There are lots of military books about the war – but this is the story told through the railway,” he says. Most transport was by the railways. It replaced the road and merchant shipping because the transport of coal up and down the coast had to stop.”

In the Blitz the Germans tried to put out the railways but they were up and running within days. Michael chronicles many stories of buckled rail, melted wires and bombed stations rectified by super-human endeavours to re-open against all odds.

“They carried troops, munitions, food and fuel supplies. Dunkirk couldn’t have happened without the railways. In a few days 1.3 million children were evacuated. It was astonishing,” says Michael.

“In the week running up to D-Day they marshalled this huge fleet of trains to meet the boats coming back. It was an amazing operation.”

The great man himself, Churchill, recognised the vital role of the railway in transporting troops, munitions and food and evacuating children.

In 1943 he praised the “unwavering courage and constant resourcefulness of railwaymen of all ranks in contributing so largely towards the final victory.”

It may have been a reserved occupation but the railways, as Michael’s book reveals, was far from a safe place to be – with bombers targeting strategic locations and trains frequently being strafed by opportunistic Luftwaffe pilots.

One veteran railway worker told Michael: “It was a dangerous time. We had to go out in the bombs day in and day out but in the Army there were huge periods of lull and rest and recuperation – and sometimes they didn’t even fight at all…”

As the men went to war there were lots of gaps, and lots of women came forward.

Albeit demanding, and sometimes physical work, it was a form of liberation from the confines of more domestic drudgery.

“There were a lot of prejudices,” says Michael.

The women acquitted themselves well – earning begrudged respect from their male colleagues. But at the end of the war they got a somewhat curt letter saying thank you very much for your services but goodbye….

“This was because the railways promised the men their jobs back,” says Michael.

“The war was a great opportunity for the women – but, after it, they ended back at their domestic duties.”

Having talked to the diminishing number of survivors from those war years, Michael regards them warmly as “modest people, ordinary people”.

In them he recognised a collective professional pride in working for the railway.

“These people were craftsmen and were committed to running trains. Making the railway work was in their blood,” he says.

His story of the lines behind the lines is a fitting and eloquent salute to the men and women who made the railways run. And a played their vital part in our victory.

About The Author

Michael Williams