What’s a humble shunter doing in a book on iconic locomotives? Might well be the reaction of some readers. The answer is that such status isn’t restricted to the fast and the glamorous.

When William Stanier arrived at Crewe as LMS chief mechanical engineer in 1932, lie realised that if the West Coast Main Line was to remain competitive with the Anglo-Scottish route of its rival, the LNER, it too required a fleet of Pacifies powerful enough to haul 500-ton express trains of up to 16 coaches unaided on the 401 -mile London-Glasgow route.

Another look at a small town and a blind man who lived there.