BR Parcels and Passenger-Rated Stock Volume 1: Full Brakes, Parcels & Miscellaneous Vans and Car-carrying Vehicles: Vol 1 Paperback – 14 Aug. 2014

A welcome addition to David Larkin's existing books produced by Kestrel on freight rolling stock. Some of the pictures are those used in the long out of print "BR General Parcels Rolling Stock, a Pictorial Survey" by David Larkin (Bradford Barton pub.1978) but that aside this title amplifies some of the detail missing from the earlier book with more text and details of running numbers, diagram no's and detail variations etc. It is also much better laid out with chapters covering the different vehicle groups like BG vehicles, PMV's etc. Less cropping of the images from the earlier title is also an improvement but its true to say picture quality of some images isn't up to modern digital standards and could possibly have been improved with modern photo editing techniques.I do however consider this excusable to keep cost down and because of the subject matter covered , few people were taking pictures of the vehicles covered in this volume when they were in traffic, so although not ideal as the book is all black & white with no colour preventing examination of liveries it is still a good book and would appeal to railway historians, enthusiast spotters and modelers alike.

Another great book by Dave Larkin. There are many books about locos, coaches and wagons but the parcels and other specialist vanstend to be forgotten even though they carried vast amounts of traffic and were an integral part of the railway scene for nearly 150 years.

Good coverage of subject.

This is an excellent work and should be of great interest to modelers and those with a more general interest of the less glamorous side of railway operations. It is a vast subject and difficult to cover completely, especially as these services, and the vehicles required, did not draw the attention of photographers in the same way that passenger services and locomotives did. I think the author has done a very creditable job, I have found the book to be of great value and would definitely recommend it to others.

Although good and a useful reference book, it was disappointing that there were no colour photographs. Although colour film was expensive in the 1960's there are vehicles available on the preserved lines, which could have been used.After saying that, it is still a very good reference book and is a historical record.

An excellent book for the modeller and historian. Mr. Larkin presents this first volume in his usual impeccable style, well illustrated with good photographs. I look forward to Volume 2, it will take it's place on my bookshelf with his other much-recommended works.

Apart from some dubious captions and locations plus the lack of any car carrying vehicles ( apart from parcels vehicles able to convey vehicles ) this is a really useful reference book. This book would have been even better printed with colour images.

I already have one or two books on Non Passenger Carrying Stock but this one has a good selection of photographs if each type of vehicle, especially the Collett Full Brake which I am modelling at the present time